LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Shelf. ._ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



OUTPOURINGS 



THE SI^IRIT; 



OR, 



A NARRATIVE OF SPIRITUAL AWAKENINGS IN 
DIFFERENT AGES AND COUNTRIES. 



Eev. W. A; McKAY, B. A., 



■p: ' - 



PASTOR OF CHALMERS CHURCH, WOODSTOCK, ONT., CANADA. 




PHILADELPHIA : 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 

AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK, 

No. 1334 Chestnut Street. 



\"^^ 






COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BO^ RD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK. 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



Westcott & Thomson, 

SUreotypers and Elecirotypers, PhUada. 



To the people of my charge^ to whom I 
have been permitted to minister these twelve 
years, and with whom I have enjoyed many 
seasons of refreshing, this little book, com- 
posed during fragments of time snatched 
from a busy pastorate, is respectfully dedi- 
cated by the Author. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEK I. 

PAGK 

What is a Kevival? 7 



CHAPTER II. 
Eevivals in Bible Times 19 

CHAPTER III. 
Revivals in England 30 

CHAPTER IV. 
Revivals in Scotland 41 

CHAPTER V. 

Revivals in Ireland 56 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEK VI. 

PAGE 

Kevivals in America 71 

CHAPTER VII. 
Kevivals in Canada 84 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Revivals and the Young 97 

CHAPTER IX. 
Eminent Revivalists and Honored Tests . 112 

CHAPTER X. 
Shall we Have a Revival? 125 



OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 



CHAPTER I. 

WHAT IS A REVIVAL? 

THE NEED OF A REVIVAL — ENCOURAGE- 
MENTS TO SEEK FOR IT. 

The last few years have been characterized 
by powerful revivals of religion. In Gi^eat 
Britain, in America, in Germany, in Switzer- 
land, in France, and especially in India, Ja- 
pan, and the far-away isles of the sea, Pente- 
cost has had its successors. A few considera- 
tions concerning the nature of a true revival, 
our need of such a gracious visitation and the 
encouragements we have to seek it will occupy 
our attention in this chapter. 

7 



8 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

What, then, is a revival of religion ? Brief- 
ly, it means a season of special religious inter- 
est and activity. The word is a familiar one. 
We read of a revival in the study of the fine 
arts, a revival in science and literature, a re- 
vival in trade and commerce. By this is meant 
a sudden and more or less widespread interest 
in these departments of business or learning. 
How deep the interest usually felt in such re- 
vivals ! How interested the merchant is in 
the revival of trade ! How he watches the 
rise in the markets, observes the multiplica- 
tion of orders and rejoices in the decrease and 
cessation of failures ! And see the gardener, 
how he watches the revival of the season ! 
No sight so welcome as the opening leaves of 
the trees, the brightening green of the grass, 
the forming buds of the flowers and the prom- 
ising blossom of the fruit. Or behold the 
mother bending over her sick child. How she 
w^atches for the return of strength, for the 
first sign of renewed appetite, for the deep- 
ening of the color in the cheek, the bright- 



WHAT IS A REVIVAL? 9 

ening of the light in the eye and the gather- 
ing of strength in the voice ! But of far 
greater importance and interest is the re- 
vival of religion in the soul. This was 
one great purpose for which the Son of 
God came into the world. "I am come/^ 
said he, "that they might have life, and 
that they might have it more abundantly.^^ 
A religious revival is such an outpouring of 
the Holy Ghost as results in the quickening 
of believers, the reclaiming of backsliders and 
the conversion of the unregenerate. 

The first effect is undoubtedly upon the 
hearts and lives of God^s own people. Un- 
belief gives way to faith and dark despond- 
ency to bright hope. Christians are brought 
to more vivid impressions of divine truth, 
more solemn views of sin and guilt, more 
soul-stirring thoughts of the love of God 
and the grace of Christ, more concern for 
a perishing world and more fervent prayer 
for the Spirit. Those who before were cold, 
formal, heartless in their worship have now 



10 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

their hearts filled with love to God and love 
to their fellow-men. Those who before seemed 
indifferent to the salvation of others now pray 
earDestly and labor zealously to bring sinners 
to Christ. Those who before were cheerless 
and gloomy are now filled with a holy joy 
and peace. ^'The joy of the Lord is their 
strength.^^ Divisions are now healed, and 
the devils of discord, envy and strife cast 
out. The temple is cleansed and a higher 
standard of Christian experience attained. 
What delight now in the house of Grod, 
what attention to his word, what bursts of 
holy song, what breathings of real devotion, 
and then what efforts for the salvation of 
souls ! Oh, this is revival. It is the re- 
covery of spiritual health. It is the Church's 
spring-time. It is the jubilee of holiness. 
It is the feast of fat things. It is the beau- 
tv of the Lord. Hear the ministers and eld- 
ers of the Free Church of Scotland, convened 
in Greneral A^embly during that wonderful 
work of grace under the preaching and sing- 



WHAT IS A REVIVAL? 11 

ing of the American evangelists^ — hear these 
venerable brethren singing, amid streaming 
tears of joy, the words of the one hnndred 
and twenty-sixth psalm : 

" When Zion's bondage God turned back, 

As men that dream' d were we. 
Then filled with laughter was our mouth, 

Our tongue with melody : 
They 'mong the heathen said, The Lord 

Great things for them hath wrought. 
The Lord hath done great things for us, 

Whence joy to us is brouglit." 

Such an arousing and intensifying of the 
spiritual life of a Church cannot fail to im- 
press the masses outside the Church. Before 
such breathing of the Spirit the most stub- 
born wills bend like the blades of grass before 
the wind. Thus the awakening becomes gen- 
eral. Sinners are converted, the membership 
of the Church increases : worldly and wicked 
men may sneer and misrepresent, but in spite 
of all opposition, the good work goes on. 
Christians are happy and angels rejoice. All 
this we see abundantly illustrated in the lives 



12 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

of Nehemiah, Paul, Luther, Knox, Wesley, 
Whitefield, Edwards, Tennent, Payson and 
many others. 

The gracious work usually begins with a 
single man or woman. One live coal kindles 
a great flame. See the sinner of Samaria. 
Her mind was dark, her life was unholy, she 
was not even seeking a Saviour. But Jesus 
revealed himself to her. She believed, and 
instantly she became a fountain of life to 
others. And in that revival of " two days " 
(John 4 : 39-42) many were saved. The 
Spirit's work in a community, as in the in- 
dividual soul, is usually like the water which 
the prophet saw in his vision, small at the 
beginning — first ankle-deep, then rising to 
the knees, then to the loins, and finally 
waters to swim in, a river that could not 
be passed over. 

Should not such seasons be the objects 
of intense desire, fervent prayer and earnest 
effort on the part of God's people? It 
may, indeed, be said that the Church should 



WHAT IS A REVIVAL? 13 

always be awake and thoroughly in earnest. 
"We readily admit the '^ should be/' but who 
will claim that the Church is so at the pres- 
ent time? It is not a question of duty or 
privilege, but a question of fact. With 
the murderous liquor-traffic, legalized by the 
votes of church-members, in full blast on 
every side of us ; with Komanism so aggres- 
sive ; with the spirit of worldliness so pre- 
vailing; with immoralities of various forms 
eating, like a cancer, into the very heart of 
the community ; with the overwhelming ma- 
jority of our young men never inside a Chris- 
tian church, and only five per cent, of them 
members of the Church ; with our prayer- 
meetings so small; and with a liberality 
amounting to less than one-seventh of a 
cent a day from each communicant for the 
evangelization of a thousand million heathen, 
— who will say that we have no need of revival 
— no need of a revival in temperance, truth- 
fulness, uprightness ? The time may come 
when the Church will be all on fire of earn- 



14 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

estness ; when every heart will be stout and 
every arm will be strong in the conflict against 
evil ; when the Sabbath assemblies will be 
crowded and the prayer-meetings times of 
refreshing; when church-members, full of 
the spirit of their Master, will rise above 
the large greeds and little givings of former 
days, and, like Araunah, as a king give unto 
a king, pouring out their treasures as brave 
warriors do their blood ; and giving, or at 
leiist striving to give, after the measure of 
Him who, that we and a lost world might 
not perish, gave his only-begotten Son. But 
the time is not yet. 

The ideal Church will be always earnest, 
active, hopeful, full of spiritual life and joy. 
But the actual Church is often weak in faith, 
poor in eifort and low in experience. At such 
a time ought not our earnest cry to ascend, 
'' Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy 
people may rejoice in thee?'^ If already 
we have some degree of spiritual life and 
vigor, would it not be better if we had 



WHAT IS A EEVIVAL? 15 

more? Look at animated nature. There 
are the lower orders of life and the higher. 
In the higher we find much sensitiveness, con- 
sciousness, energy, heat and expression, while 
in the lower we see but little. So there are 
Christians who are barely living, and others 
who have ^Mife more abundantly.'^ About 
the lowest order of life is a small jelly-like 
thing which does nothing more than stick 
to the substance on which it feeds. Are 
there not too many Christians who are bone- 
less, nerveless jelly-fish ^^ hangers-on '' in the 
Church? How many professing Christians 
are fast asleep ! Rev. Dr. Rice of Virginia 
declares his solemn conviction that four-fifths 
of the membership of our churches add noth- 
ing to the real power of the Church. 

It must not be forgotten that spiritual 
life, whether in the individual or in a com- 
munity, is seldom, if ever, uniform. There 
are seasons of declension. " My people,'^ saith 
the Lord, '' are bent to backsliding from me.'' 
Who that considers the condition of modern 



16 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

society, the keen competition in business, the 
craving for amusements and sports of every 
kind, the excitement of politics and the high 
strain at which we live, but must admit the 
terrible power of those influences which, at 
the present time, distract even the most seri- 
ous Christians and tend to divert their minds 
from close and constant intercourse with heav- 
en? Where is the Christian assembly in 
which there is no reason to lament the prev- 
alence of sinful conformity to the world, the 
decay of piety and the lukewarmness of many 
professors ? Where is the Christian who does 
not find within himself a proneness to decline 
from the spirit and power of godliness ? We 
become weary in well-doing. Indifference, 
apathy, deadness come upon us. 



^' With outstretched hands and streaming eyes, 
Oft I begin to grasp the prize ; 
I groan, I strive, I watch, I pray ; 
But ah ! Diy zeal soon dies away." 



^ 



How is this downward tendency to be 
checked? Obviously, the only remedy for 



WHAT IS A REVIVAL? 17 

a season of spiritual declension is a season 
of spiritual revival. 

" Rise, Lord, stir up thy quickening power 
And wake me that I sleep no more." 

The encouragements to seek a revival of 
religion are many and great. God is willing 
to revive us. His pleasure is the prosperity 
of Zion and the conversion of the world. 
His promise is, " I will pour out my Spirit 
upon all flesh.'' " Thou shalt arise, and have 
mercy upon Zion ; for the time to favor her, 
yea, the set time, is come.'' We are living in 
the dispensation of the Spirit. Supposing the 
Christians of our land were as dead as the 
bones Ezekiel saw in his vision, and as sep- 
arated, one from another, as were they, yet in 
response to earnest, persevering prayer for a 
revival the Almighty will bring every bone 
to his bone, or will clothe and bind them with 
flesh and sinew, and cover them with skin ; 
yea, he will breathe upon the yet lifeless 
forms and they shall live; yea, they shall 

2 



18 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

live a united and strong army to do val- 
iantly for the Lord God of truth and mercy. 
This indeed would be a day of life, of joy, of 
power. May the Lord send such a season to 
all the churches! "Awake! awake! put on 
thy strength, O Zion ! put on thy beautiful 
garments, O Jerusalem/' "Arise, shine; for 
thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord 
is risen upon thee.'^ Showers of blessings are 
descending here and there. " Ye that make 
mention of the Lord keep not silence, and giv^e 
him no rest, till he establish, and till he make 
Jerusalem a praise in the earth.'' 



CHAPTER II. 

BEVIVALS IN BIBLE TIMES. 

PREJUDICES AGAINST REVIVALS — THE GEN- 
UINE MUST NOT BE REJECTED BECAUSE OF 
THE COUNTERFEIT — INCIDENTAL EXCESSES 

REVIVALS IN THE DAYS OF ENOCH, 

MOSES, JOSHUA; IN THE TIME OF THE 
JUDGES; IN THE DAYS OF SAMUEL, ELI- 
JAH, JONAH, HEZEKIAH AND NEHEMIAH 

NEW-TESTAMENT REVIVALS, AND THEIR 

GLORIOUS RESULTS. 

It is well known, that a strong prejudice 
exists amongst some good Christians against 
what are termed '' revivals of religion.^^ Per- 
haps this is not to be wondered at. There has 
been so much defective if not erroneous teach- 
ing, so much fanatical excitement and so much 
hollow profession, connected with some so-called 

19 



20 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

revivals that it is not surprising that many 
earnest but sober-minded Christians have ac- 
quired a distaste for the very word " revival/^ 
But let us beware of rejecting the genuine gold 
because of its worthless counterfeit. 

It is only the good, the precious, that is 
counterfeited. Were there no true Chris- 
tians, there would be no false ones, and 
were there no real revivals, there would be 
no imitations. 

How careful also we should be lest we dis- 
countenance a real work of grace because of 
some thino:s which occasionallv mav accom- 
pany it ! There may many things occur dur- 
ing a season of special religious interest that 
do not constitute a part of the revival. When 
Whitefield was once preaching in Boston, the 
place was so packed that the gallery was sup- 
posed to be giving way, and there was a panic 
in which several persons were trampled to 
death. But it would be unfair and unrea- 
sonable to blame the revival for this. Con- 
nected with many revivals there has been 



REVIVALS IN BIBLE TIMES. 21 

much of an emotional and spasmodical char- 
acter. But these are only incidental. The 
adventitious is not to be confounded with the 
essential. We do not despise the great river 
because of the sticks and straws that may oc- 
casionally float on its surface. The greatest 
possible evil is a deadly insensibility. The 
storm is preferable to a parching drought. 
Better, if that were necessary, to have noisy 
animal excitement than that the sterile wastes 
of worldliness should not be transformed into 
fruitful gardens of the Lord. Notwithstanding 
incidental excesses, there is such a thing as a 
true revival of religion. The psalmist when 
he prayed; "Wilt thou not revive us again ?'^ 
was not guilty of presumption and mockery ; 
nor the prophet when he cried, " O Lord, re- 
vive thy work in the midst of the years, in 
the midst of the years make known ; in wrath 
remember mercy.^^ God's promise is not a 
meaningless one : " I will be as the dew unto 
Israel ; he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth 
his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, 



22 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and 
his smell as Lebanon/' In this chapter we 
shall look at some of the revivals in Bible 
times. 

Under the old dispensation there were many- 
seasons when the people felt the nearness of the 
Lord and the power of his Spirit in an extra- 
ordinary manner. We have a glimpse of such 
a season in the days of Enoch, when " men be- 
gan to call upon the name of the Lord/' That 
was a genuine revival of religion when Moses, 
after communing with God on the mount for 
forty days and forty nights, called the people 
together, gave them the commandments of the 
Lord and spoke to them particularly concern- 
ing the building of the tabernacle. Great in- 
deed w^as the exuberance of their devotion. 
Every man and woman did offer willingly 
unto the Lord of the gold and the silver and 
the jewels, and of the blue, the purple and the 
scarlet and fine linen, and of all their posses- 
sions. So freely and liberally did the people 
contribute that Moses was compelled to send 



EEVIVALS IN BIBLE TIMES. 23 

forth a proclamation restraining them from 
bringing any more. What a blessing such a 
revival would be to the empty treasury and 
languishing mission schemes of many congre- 
gations at the present time! AVe have the 
record of a powerful religious awakening in 
the last chapter of the book of Joshua. All 
Israel is gathered at Shechem^ and Joshua, 
old and about to die, gives them his farew^ell 
words of warning and exhortation. ^^Put 
away," said he, ^^the strange gods which 
are among you, and incline your heart unto 
the Lord God of Israel. And the people 
saith unto Joshua, The Lord our God will 
we serve, and his voice will we obey." That 
day they renewed their covenant with God. 
Nor were the results of this awakening spas- 
modic or shortlived, for " Israel served the 
Lord all the days of Joshua, and all tlie days 
of the elders that outlived Joshua." 

We read of a revival of religion in the time 
of the Judges, when "Israel cried unto the 
Lord," and he raised up Deborah and Barak 



24 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

to rescue them from Jabin and Sisera ; and in 
the days of Samuel, when ^^ Israel lamented 
after the Lord/^ and he thundered upon the 
Philistines and discomfited them ; and in the 
days of Elijah, when the prophet triumphed 
gloriously, and the people, convinced and re- 
pentant, fell upon their faces crying, '^ The 
Lord, he is the God ! The Lord, he is the 
God l'^ and in the days of Jonah, when the 
voice of the stranger, preaching in the streets, 
carried conviction and penitence into the hearts 
of all the people of jSTineveh from the king to 
the beggar; and in the days of Hezekiah, 
when ^^ a very great congregation '' assembled 
at Jerusalem to observe the passover, and a 
series of ^^ special services^' was held for 
two successive weeks amidst ^^ great glad- 
ness'^ because of answered prayer and spir- 
itual blessing. 

One of the most remarkable revivals re- 
corded in the Old Testament is that of which 
we read in the eighth chapter of Nehemiah. 
For eight days all the people were gathered 



REVIVALS IN BIBLE TIMES. 25 

in the street. The time was oceupied with 
Bible-reading, free conversation, prayer, praise 
and confession of sin. There was ^' very great 
gladness/^ also deep conviction, for "all the 
people wept when they heard the words of the 
law.^' "And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great 
God. And all the people answered Amen, 
Amen, with lifting up their hands; and they 
bowed their heads, and worshiped the Lord 
with their faces to the ground. ^^ Many of 
the Psalms bear striking testimony to special 
manifestations of the mighty power of God 
in reviving his people. 

Coming to the New Testament, we find fre- 
quent and powerful revivals of religion. This 
is the dispensation of the Spirit. Christianity 
was born in a great revival. " From the days 
of John the Baptist until now the kingdom 
of heaven suffereth violence, and the vio- 
lent take it by force." What awakenings 
under the preaching of John and Jesus, of 
James and his brother John, of Peter and of 
Paul, of Silas and of Barnabas ! How won- 



26 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

derful the baptism of the Spirit on the day 
of Pentecost, when three thousand were con- 
verted under the preaching of one sermon ! 
And so on through the apostolic age. Those 
were the days of heaven upon earth. Con- 
verts were then daily added unto the Church. 
Sometimes they came by tens and sometimes 
by thousands, and ^^ great grace was upon them 
all." What an experience believers then had ! 
What communion with God ! What joy in 
the Holy Ghost ! What tender sympathy 
with one another ! The rich cheerfully gave 
of their abundance to supply the wants of the 
poor, and believers abounded in prayers and 
good works. 

The history of Christianity during the first 
three centuries is a history of one almost un- 
broken revival. The gales of the Spirit then 
blew with unwonted freshness. The Church 
was all on fire with earnestness. Christians 
were Christians indeed. They believed what 
they professed ; they knew what they spoke ; 
they testified what they had seen ; and, filled 



REVIVALS IN BIBLE TIMES. 27 

with an irrepressible life, they went forward 
with an unconquerable energy which even the 
iron power of Rome could not resist. There 
were no honorary members in the Church. 
Every disciple felt that the Lord^s last com- 
mand was addressed to him, and whatever his 
circumstances — whether he moved in Csesar's 
houseliold or, like Lydia, in the pursuit of 
humble commerce — he sought to publish the 
glad news. Nor was the preaching confined, 
as is too much the case in our day, to places 
specially set apart for that purpose, but they 
went from house to house ; they went to the 
river-side, to the street-corners, to the market- 
places, as well as to the synagogues. His- 
tory tells us of the rapid and far-reaching 
results. Without our modern facilities for 
travel or our multiplied agencies for mission- 
ary work, in less than three centuries from 
the death of Christ the cross was uplifted 
in every land, the name of Jesus was pro- 
claimed in every known dialect, mission- 
aries passed through the deserts, penetrated 



28 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

into the remote recesses of uncivilized coun- 
tries and the whole known world was evan- 
gelized. 

But, alas ! in her prosperity the Church for- 
got God. Her faith became corrupted, her love 
waxed cold, and consequently her activity de- 
clined. Under Constantiue she entered into an 
alliance with the world. The great papal apos- 
tasy followed. The Man of Sin, who ^^ oppos- 
etli and exalteth himself above all that is called 
God,'^ appeared, and for about one thousand 
years darkness covered the whole earth and 
gross darkness the people, until the light was 
restored and the Church was redeemed by 
those wonderful revivals of religion that fol- 
lowed the faithful preaching of the word by 
Huss, Jerome of Prague, Wyclif, Luther, 
Calvin, Knox, Farel and the great host of 
British and continental Reformers and mar- 
tyrs. We have said enough to show that re- 
ligious revivals, instead of being something to 
be dreaded or regarded with suspicion, consti- 
tute an important factor in the divine econ- 



REVIVALS IN BIBLE TIMES. 29 

omy in carrying on the work of grace in the 
world. 

" There is not/^ says one, ^' a denomination 
in Cliristendom to-day that has not sprung 
out of a revival.^' He who indiscriminately 
condemns revivals is really challenging the 
ways of the Almighty and fighting against 
God. 



CHAPTER III. 

REVIVALS IN ENGLAND. 

WyCLIF, his " PRIESTS '^ AND LAY-PREACH- 
ERS, AND THEIR WORK — LUTHER, CRAN- 

MER, RIDLEY, LATIMER AND HOOPER 

THE PREACHING OF THE PURITANS 
CHARACrERi:2ED — THE WESLEYS AND 

THEIR TIMES WHITEFIELD AND HIS 

WORK — THE METHODIST CHURCH AND 
REVIVALS. 

Although the term ^^ revival ^^ was not 
generally applied to active religious move- 
ments in the fourteenth century, yet even at 
that date England experienced an awakening 
which might well be called by that name. To 
Wyclif, " the Morning Star of the Reforma- 
tion,'^ must be given the credit of inaugurat- 
ing this movement. The key-note of the pe- 
so 



REVIVALS IN ENGLAND. 31 

riod was "an open Bible.'^ Too long it had 
been a sealed book. But Wyclif made a re- 
markably faithful translation from the Vul- 
gate, and the people were exhorted to study 
that blessed book for themselves. He regard- 
ed the Sci-iptures as the supreme authority. 
^' Even though there were a hundred popes, 
and all the monks were transformed into car- 
dinals, in matters of faith their opinion would 
be of no account unless they were founded on 
Scripture.'^ 

Realizing that it was impossible for a single 
individual to accomplish all that was required 
to be done, he organized a company of itin- 
erants who could carry the gospel far and 
wide. These men were students and grad- 
uates of Oxford, and were known as the 
"poor priests.^^ But though poor in this 
world's goods, they were rich in faith and 
good works, and they emulated the zeal, 
the heroism, the devotion and the enthu- 
siasm of their master. To render the work 
still more effectual, he sent forth a com- 



32 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

pany of lay-preachers, who labored princi- 
pally around Oxford and Gloucester. Clad 
in the plainest garments, without shoes 
and armed only with a staff, they traveled 
through the country and summoned men to 
repentance. Although the results af this 
movement cannot now be tabulated, yet 
there can be no doubt that the efforts of 
Wyclif, as well as those of his ^^poor 
priests^' and lay-preachers, were crowned 
with great success. Many of the clergy 
w^ere induced to lead purer lives; many of 
the careless awakened ; many of the thought- 
less aroused ; many of the defiant made peni- 
tent; and the moral tone of many districts 
was greatly elevated and purified. 

But gradually the Church was lulled to sleep 
again, and, though dreamily opening her eyes 
as spasmodic efforts were made here and there, 
she was not thorouglily aroused till the six- 
teenth century. Then the trumpet-blasts of 
Luther in Germany were heard in England, 
and the strains were echoed by such men as 



REVIVALS IN ENGLAND. 33 

Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Hooper. Their 
movement met a serious check during the reign 
of Bloody Mary, but was revived with fresh 
power under the Puritan divines. Great in- 
deed was the impetus given to spiritual life 
and activity through the characteristic preach- 
ing of these men. The style of their preach- 
ing was clear, logical and doctrinal ; the tone 
was calm and subdued ; and if it lacked the 
*^ fire ^^ that characterized some of the later 
English revivals, it was eminently calculated 
nevertheless to tear down the props of self- 
righteousness and to build up a vigorous type 
of Christian character. 

The third and grandest of the English re- 
vivals was inaugurated in the last century by 
the " Holy Club '' or " Methodists ''—names 
given in derision to the Wesleys and their 
like-minded fellow-students, who met regu- 
larly on stated days of the week at Oxford, 
for prayer, Bible-study and mutual edifica- 
tion. There was a crying need for a fresh 
baptism of the Holy Ghost. With the res- 

3 



34 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

toration of the Stuarts there rolled in a flood 
of licentiousness which swept away almost 
every barrier interposed by religion for the 
safety of good manners and morals. Many 
of the upper classes were saturated watli in- 
fidelity, while many of the lower were shame- 
fully ignorant of the first principles of Script- 
ure truth. "The Church/' says one, "was 
a fair carcass without the Spirit/^ Many of 
the clergymen were ignorant of theology, and 
in their preaching they passed the gospel by 
on the other side. Sad to say, not a few 
of them went drunk into the pulpit. The 
]'iver of life seemed to be frozen over. " Eng- 
land,'' says Isaac Taylor, himself a Church- 
man, "had lapsed into virtual heathenism 
when Wesley appeared.^' "No man could 
tell,'' says Cardinal Manning, " into how deep 
a degradation England would have sunk had 
it not been for the preaching of John Wes- 
ley.'' But the darkest hour is just before 
the dawn, and about the year 1730 gleams 
of light began to stream out from Oxford. 



I 



REVIVALS IN ENGLAND. 35 

The light glimmered for a short time in 
London, where George AVhitefield spent a 
few days preparatory to his embarking for 
America. A few months afterward it burst 
in full glory upon the crude, benighted, irre- 
ligious colliers in Kingswood, where White- 
field, who had returned from America, beg^an 
the then unpopular practice of field-preach- 
ing. His preaching w^as indeed a revelation 
to these men. They had been so long neg- 
lected that they had become coarse and brutal. 
So much terror did their very name inspire 
that scarcely any one would venture to go 
among them. But Whitefield was no coward. 
The door was opened and he entered. This 
was on Feb. 17, 1739. The eifect was mar- 
velous. From their sooty pits these swarthy 
colliers listened with uplifted faces and stream- 
ing eyes to the words of life. Whitefield him- 
self says : " The first discovery of their being 
aifected was to see the white gutters made by 
their tears, which plentifully flowed down their 
cheeks as they came out of their coal-pits.'' 



36 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

It was no unusual sight to see an audience 
of twenty thousand persons, and sometimes 
sixty thousand, many of them visibly affected. 
*' Probably/' writes one, ^' no other uninspired 
man ever preached to so large assemblies or 
enforced the simple truths of the gospel by 
motives so persuasive and awful, and with an 
influence so powerful upon the hearts of his 
hearers.'^ A single incident will serve to show 
the power of Whitefield's oratory. Chester- 
field was listening on one occasion while White- 
field described the sinner as a blind beggar led 
by a dog. By-and-by the dog left him, so he 
was forced to grope his way guided only by his 
staff. Continuing, the preacher said, '' Uncon- 
sciously he wanders to the edge of a precipice ; 
his staff drops from his hand down the abyss, 
too far to send back an echo : he reaches for- 
ward cautiously to recover it ; for a moment 
he is poised on vacancy, and — " "Good 
God ! he is gone !'' shouted Chesterfield as he 
sprung from his seat to prevent the catas- 
trophe. 



REVIVALS IN ENGLAND. 37 

From Kingswood the movement spread to 
the neighboring town of Bristol, where White- 
field was joined by John Wesley. The latter 
had some scruples against field-preaching, bnt 
under the persuasion of his companion he set 
them aside. It was a good thing for these 
two great preachers that they w^ere shut out 
of the churches ; they might have been shut 
in. Day by day the interest deepened. Thou- 
sands flocked to hear the preachers, and both 
before and after service hundreds came to in- 
quire the way of salvation. The opposition 
was mighty, but not almighty, and divine 
grace prevailed. Moorfield, Gloucester, Hal- 
stead, Dedham, Ipswich, Withersfield, Col- 
chester and other places w^ere visited, and m 
all a gracious work was accomplished. In, 
Moorfield in a single day about three hun- 
dred were converted. ^^Give me,'^ said John 
Wesley, '' one hundred preachers who fear 
nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, 
and I care not a straw whether they be cler- 
gymen or laymen; they alone will shake the 



38 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

gates of hell and set up the kingdom of 
heaven upon earth. '^ He got his heart's 
desire. 

The early preachers of Methodism, though 
for the most part strangers to college-train- 
ing, were men of conviction, men of courage, 
and, if not profusely adorned with literary 
ititles, they were certainly behind none of us 
in faith, in zeal, in self-sacrifice and in a de- 
termination to win the world for Christ. The 
gates of hell were indeed shaken, Satan was 
; aroused, and the preachers were subject to al- 
most every form of insult and outrage. They 
were mobbed and spit upon, and not infre- 
quently they returned from a religious service 
bleeding with wounds. But sometimes " fools 
who came to scoflf* remained to pray.'' On 
on(3 occasion Wesley was preaching in a barn. 
At the close of the service a man emerged 
from his hiding-place in the hay-loft, and 
with club in hand tlius accosted the preaclier : 
^^I came here, sir, to break your head, but 
you have broken my heart." So true is it 



REVIVALS IN ENGLAND. 39 

that God is sometimes found of those who are 
not seeking him. 

Fortunately for the cause of Methodism and 
for Christianity in England, John Wesley was 
a master organizer. His brother Charles sup- 
plied the hymns which were then and are still 
such a power in the Methodist Church, and no 
less than thirty of which are found in the Hym- 
nal lately authorized by the General Assembly 
of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Men 
of apostolic zeal, like Fletcher and Dr. Coke, 
did much to advance early Methodism. There 
can be no doubt that to the great awakening in 
which Wesley and Whitefield were the leaders 
may be traced back many of the ever-widening 
and deepening streams of religious beneficence 
of the present day. 

The history of the w^onderful progress of 
Methodism since the days of Wesley is almost 
a continuous history of revivals. To only one 
of these can we here refer, and that in the brief- 
est terms. Many on this side of the Atlan- 
tic will distinctly remember the Rev. James 



40 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

Caughey. Wonderful indeed was the power 
of the grace of God as seen in the labors of this 
man in many parts of England. During the 
two years 1845 and 1846 more than ten thou- 
sand persons professed to have been converted 
through him. 

We look at the great Methodist Church 
throughout the world to-day with five million 
oommunicants and twenty-five million adhe- 
rents, so evangelical, so earnest, so mighty a 
power for good, and we ask, How did this 
Church attain its present position and char- 
acter within the comparatively short period 
of a hundred and fifty years? The reply 
comes : Its converts have been made not 
one now and another ao;ain, but thev have 
come in by fifties, by hundreds and by thou- 
sands under mighty outpourings of the Holy 
Ghost. The Methodist Church is a revival 
Church, and we thank God for revivals. 



CHAPTER lY. 

EEVIVALS IN SCOTLAND, 

AN ERROR CORRECTED — PRESBYTERIANISM 

IN SCOTLAND BORN IN A REVIVAL 

KNOX, WISHART, COOPER THE GENERAL 

ASSEMBLY OF 1596 — JOHN LIVINGSTONE 

AND THE KIRK-OF-SHOTTS REVIVAL 

OTHER AWAKENINGS REV. W. C. BURNS 

AND KILSYTH — REV. R. MCCHEYNE AND 
THE REVIVAL AT DUNDEE — THE ^^ LAY- 
MEN^S REVIVAL '' — THE MOODY AND SAN- 
KEY REVIVAL. 

^^ Presbyterians don't believe in revivals.^^ 
So wrote a youthful member of the Church to a 
minister who was at the time assisting a brother 
in special evangelistic services. At the funeral 
of Jabez Bunting, when the officiating clergy- 
man declared that there was not such another 

41 



42 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

just and good man living as Jabez Bunting, a 
somewhat eccentric but veracious woman cried 
out, " Thank God, that's a lie T' I was strik- 
ingly reminded of this good woman's reply 
when I read the statement, ^^Presbyterians 
don't believe in revivals.'' On page 822 of 
the Minutes of the Second General Council of 
the Presbyterian Alliance, which met at Phil- 
adelphia, 1880, 1 find the following statement : 
'' It is a matter of record that probably seven- 
eighths of the hundreds of thousands of Pres- 
byterian communicants in America are the 
fruits of these blessed means of grace " (revi- 
vals). Presbyterians may, indeed, conscien- 
tiously differ from some of their fellow-Chris- 
tians as to the best means and methods of con- 
ducting and promoting revivals, but they most 
assuredly believe in revivals, and no Church 
on earth owes more than the Presbyterian to 
powerful and extensive awakenings. 

We wdll look in this chapter at her history 
in Scotland. There she was born in a revival, 
and has prospered largely by means of revivals; 



EEVIVALS IN SCOTLAND. 43 

and to-day her clear apprehension^ unflinching 
maintenance and earnest propagation of Script- 
ure truth evince her origin and her history. 
See the earnestness of John Knox^ who under 
the burden of souls could not sleep, but, leav- 
ing his bed in the cold night, knelt down and 
prayed for Scotland; and when his wife im- 
portuned him to come back to the pillow, 
replied, '' Woman, how can I sleep when my 
country is not saved ? O God ! give me Scot- 
land or I die !'^ Under the preaching of John 
Knox, George Wishart, William Cooper and 
other men with glowing hearts and tongues of 
fire Scotland from centre to circumference was 
aroused from spiritual slumber, redeemed from 
the blight of the papacy, and a direction was 
given to the whole of modern Scottish thought 
that has made itself felt throughout the civil- 
ized world. A gracious rain descended on the 
pastures of the wilderness, and the thirsty land 
became springs of water. " The whole nation,'^ 
says the historian, '' was converted by lump. 
Lo ! here a nation born in a day.'^ 



44 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

It would be difficult to estimate the far- 
reaching influence of that mighty outpouring 
of the Spirit upon the General Assembly of 
1596j when more than four hundred ministers 
and elders humbled themselves before God 
with "sighs and groans and shedding of 
penitential tears/^ These were also the days 
when the venerable Bruce preached w^ith such 
power at Edinburgh^ the house of God be- 
coming literally "a Bocliim/^ a place of 
weeping. 

Who has not heard of that memorable day 
in the history of Scottish Presbyterianism 
(Monday^ June 21, 1630) when John Liv- 
ingstone, only twenty -seven years of age and 
not yet ordained, took his stand on a tomb- 
stone in the churchyard at the Kirk of Shotts, 
and preached amid a heavy shower of rain ; 
but the Spirit of God came down with such 
power that nearly five hundred souls were 
converted in one day? Nor did the good 
work cease on that day. " It was/' says 
Fleming, "the sowing of a seed through 



■ 



REVIVALS IN SCOTLAND. 45 

Clydesdale, so that many of the most emi- 
nent Christians in that country could date 
either their conversion or some remarkable con- 
firmation from it.'' Again, in 1638 refresh- 
ing showers of divine influence were poured 
on many congregations, so that Livingstone 
said, ^'In all my lifetime, excepting at the 
Kirk of Shotts, I never saw such motions 
from the Spirit of God. I have seen more 
than a thousand persons all at once lifting 
up their hands and tears falling down from 
their eyes.'' Space will not permit us to 
dwell upon the great spiritual awakenings that 
occurred in 1742 at Cambuslang and Kilsyth, 
at Campsie and Calder, and in all the regions 
round about. Saints were quickened, sinners 
were converted and God was glorified. 

In 1771, under the preaching of White- 
field, the mighty powder of God was seen in 
many places, particularly at a place called 
Lundie, five miles north of Dundee. Scarce- 
ly had the preacher begun w^hen the divine 
presence was felt. '' Never," adds his fellow- 



I 



46 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

traveler, '' did I see such weeping in any con- 
gregation/^ 

We read of an extensive awakening at 
Moulin in 1800, at Arran in 1813, at Skye 
in 1814 and at Lewes in 1834. Under these 
gracious outpourings many a barren spot be- 
came fruitful, many a sorrowing heart was 
made glad and many a wilderness home blos- 
somed as the rose. 

In 1839, while Eev. W. C. Burns, after- 
ward the famous Chinese missionary, was 
preaching the gospel at Kilsyth, the Spirit 
of God was poured out on the people. '^ They 
were,^^ says one, '^ overw^ielmed with a flood 
of commingled sorrow and joy, so that fre- 
quently the voice of the preacher was drowned 
in the sobs and cries of tlie penitents.^^ The 
power of the Lord's Spirit became so mighty 
upon their souls as to carry all before it, like 
the rushing mighty wind of Pentecost. The 
movement soon spread to Dundee, where a glo- 
rious work was accomplished chiefly through 



EEYIYALS IN SCOTLAND. 47 

the instrumentality of Rev. K. M. McCheyne, of 
blessed memory. There is much in the biog- 
raphy of this eminent minister of Christ from 
which every Christian worker, and especially 
every gospel preacher, may learn useful les- 
sons. His was a strong intellect and a loving 
heart, but, more than all, a soul living in clos- 
est communion with God. Herein lay his 
wonderful power. And so still : real, effective 
power lies not so much in what a man says as 
in what a man is. There is no rhetoric so 
persuasive, no logic so powerful, as the earn- 
estness of a man who lives near to God. We 
want eloquent sermons, but the sentences that 
are most brilliant, that please the ear and charm 
the fancy, may be as hard as diamonds and as 
cold as icicles. The sermons that fall upon 
men^s hearts as the good seed of the kingdom, 
that germinate and bring forth fruit, are not 
always great intellectually ; but they are ser- 
mons that have been '' steeped in prayer, and 
that are preached to those whose spirits have 
been mellowed by prayer.'^ 



I 



48 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

" When one who holds communion with the skies 
Has filled his urn where those pure waters rise, 
And once more mingles with us meaner things, 
^Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings ; 
Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, 
That tells us whence these treasures are supplied." 

But we must return to the Dundee revival. 
It began under the ministry of W. C. Burns 
while McCheyne was absent from home on a 
mission to the Jews in Palestine. McCheyne 
tells us that on his return he found no less 
than thirty-nine prayer-meetings held weekly 
in connection with his congregation ; " five of 
these were conducted and attended entirely 
by children." Within three months not fewer 
than from six hundred to seven hundred came 
to converse with him about their souls^ and 
this by no means included all who were deeply 
concerned. '' I have observed at times/^ says 
McCheyne, '^ an awful and breathless stillness 
pervading the assembly, each hearer bent for- 
ward in the posture of rapt attention. . . . 
Again at times I have heard a half-suppressed 
sigh rising from many a heart, and have seen 



REVIVALS IN SCOTLAND, 49 

many bathed in tears. At other times I have 
heard loud sobbing in many parts of the 
church, while an awfully solemn sense of 
the divine presence pervaded the whole 
audience. ... I have seen persons so over- 
come that they could not walk or stand 
alone. I have known cases in which be- 
lievers have been similarly affected through 
the fullness of their joy.^' I am sure my 
readers will excuse me for giving a few 
more words from this, one of the most 
saintly and Christ-like ministers that ever 
blessed the Presbyterian Church of Scot- 
land or of any other land. Speaking of 
the immediate and outward results of this 
revival, he says : '' The effects upon the com- 
munity are very marked. It seems now to 
be allowed, even by the most ungodly, that 
there is such a thing as conversion. Men 
cannot any longer deny it. The Sabbath 
is now observed with greater reverence than 
it used to be, and there seems to be far more 
of a solemn awe upon the minds of men than 

4 



50 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

formerly. I feel that I can now stop sinners 
in the midst of their open sin and wickedness^ 
and command their reverent attention in a 
way that I could not have done before. The 
private meetings for prayer have spread a 
sweet influence over the place. There is far 
more solemnity in the house of God, and it 
is a different thing to preach to the people 
now from what it once was.^' Farther on he 
adds : ^^ I do entirely and solemnly approve 
of such meetings, because I believe them to 
be in accordance with the word of God, to be 
pervaded by the Spirit of Christ and to be 
ofttimes the birthplace of precious never-dy- 
ing souls.'^ 

In 18e59 tidings of the work of grace in 
America and in Ireland stirred the hearts of 
Scottish Christians, and in many places there 
were gracious awakenings. These awaken- 
ings were called the " Laymen's Revival, '^ 
from the fact that at this time the divine 
Head of the Church, as if to assert his own 
sovereignty and the power of divine grace in 



BEVIVALS IN SCOTLAND. 51 

the salvation of meD, was pleased to raise up 
an extraordinary number of eminent laymen 
to preach the gospel. Among these honored 
laymen the following may be mentioned: 
Brownlow North, Keginald Eadcliffe, H. M. 
Grant, Duncan Matheson, James Turner, Rob- 
ert Annan and Robert Cunningham. The re- 
vival was indeed led and sustained by bands 
of earnest ministers of various denominations, 
but the laymen named and many others were 
extra harvest-hands called to the work on 
this remarkable occasion, and many were the 
sheaves gathered in. We cannot go into par- 
ticulars, but in many parts of Scotland con- 
gregations and communities rejoiced that the 
winter was gone and the time for the singing 
of birds had come. A single illustration must 
suffice. Duncan Matheson thus writes of one 
place : " At eight o'clock Mr. Campbell and I 
preached to thousands in the open air. What 
a night ! We had over and over to preach. 
The crowds had to be divided, for they were 
too large. We could not till nearly eleven 



52 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

o'clock get away from the awakened. Pray 
for us. The Lord is doing great things. I 
believe almost every time one speaks souls are 
brought to Christ.'' 

An outpouring of the Spirit at this time 
reached the fishermen of Scotland^. a class 
usually found to be painfully proof against 
the operations of the ordinary means of grace. 
Out of the crews of two boats numbering fifty 
men, forty-two were converted to Christ, and 
on many a fishing-boat earnest prayers were 
offered, and the sweet melodies of David's 
psalms might often be heard mingling with 
the still more ancient harmonies of the great 
ocean. 

Rev. J. Macpherson says of this revival : 
"Many thousands were added to the Lord. 
Of these a large proportion consisted of young 
men, not a few of whom are now ministers at 
home or missionaries abroad. In fact, there is 
scarcely a church in which you do not find 
some of them in honorable posts of office or 
useful spheres of work. Nor is there a for- 



REVIVALS IN SCOTLAND. 53 

eign mission in connection with which some 
of them are not laboring. Out of that move- 
ment there sprang, too, a host of Sabbath- 
school teachers, district visitors and other 
Christian workers. The impulse given to 
family religion was a striking feature.^^ 

The last, and perhaps the greatest, revi- 
val of religion that has blessed the Scottish 
churches since the days of John Knox was 
that under the now world-renowed American 
evangelists. Moody and Sankey, in the latter 
part of 1873 and the beginning of 1874. 
Space forbids going into detail. The record 
of the work is a history of one long-continued 
miracle of grace. Drs. Blaikie, Bonar, Brown, 
Duff, Thompson, A. Moody Stuart, Prof. Cal- 
derwood and a large number of the most emi- 
nent ministers and professors in Scotland joined 
hands with the evangelists, prayed for their 
work and rejoiced in their prosperity. No 
building could contain the multitudes that 
came to hear Moody preach the gospel and 
Sankey sing the gospel. At an open-air 



64 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

meeting in Glasgow the policemen on the 
ground estimated the number present at not 
less than fifty thousand persons. In a place 
with a population of not more than twenty- 
five hundred as many as fourteen hundred 
persons would come together for prayer. 
Rev. C. H. Spurgeon says of this work : 
"The gracious visitation which has come 
upon Edinburgh is such as was probably 
never known before within the memory of 
man. The whole place seems to be moved 
from end to end. When we hear of many 
thousands coming together on week-days to 
quite ordinary meetings, and crying, ' What 
must we do to be saved?' there is, we are 
persuaded, the hand of God in the matter.'' 
Speaking of the work, Dr. Bonar says : " In 
all my life I never preached to such an audi- 
ence. The vast multitude bowed under the 
simple preaching of the gospel, and without 
any excitement were melted into tears of peni- 
tence and the children of God to tears of joy. 
. . . The presence of God pervaded the very 



r 



EEVIVALS IN SCOTLAND. 55 

air and was felt everywhere/^ Upward of 
three thousand persons were added to the 
various churches of Edinburgh alone as the 
result of this great awakening, and the work 
was endorsed as a great work of God by the 
most eminent clergymen and Christian work- 
ers in the land. I now leave it for the read- 
ers to say whether or not Presbyterians be- 
lieve in revivals. Oh for the fire from 
heaven ! 



CHAPTER V. 

REVIVALS IN IRELAND. ^ 

THE SETTLEMENT OF ULSTER — EARLY RE- 
VIVALS — UNITARIANISM AND ITS BLIGHT- 
ING EFFECTS — THE YEAR OF GRACE (1859) 

THE BISHOP OF DOWN — CHURCH UNION 

"STRIKINGS/^ "seizures/^ ^^PROSTRA- 
TIONS ^^ — SOME WORSE THINGS THAN PHYS- 
ICAL EXCITEMENT — THE MOODY AND SAN- 
KEY REVIVAL. 

If religious revivals have not been so 
frequent in Ireland as in England and 
Scotland, they have undoubtedly been more 
fervent. What is lost in extension is gained 
in intension. In Ireland, very emphatically, 
the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence 
and men of violence have taken it by force. 
Protestantism in Ireland dates from the Plan- 

66 



REVIVALS IN IRELAND. 57 

tation of Ulster about the beginning of the 
seventeenth century. At this time many Pres- 
byterians in Scotland fled from persecution in 
their native land and settled in the province 
of Ulster. In 1615^ the first Protestant Con- 
fession of Faith was drawn up by James 
Ussher. It was not, however, till 1626 that the 
beginning of the Presbyterian system was laid 
by Hugh Campbell. Blair, Livingstone and 
other men of good parts represented the Pres- 
byterian cause about this time. Under their 
preaching a very powerful revival of religion 
occurred about the year 1628, and continued 
for some years thereafter. This revival Flem- 
ing describes as '^ a bright, hot sun-blink of 
the gospel," and as '^ one of the largest mani- 
festations of the Spirit and of the solemn 
times of the downpouring thereof that al- 
most since the days of the apostles hath been 
seen." As to the effects of it upon the char- 
acter of the people, Livingstone, after describ- 
ing the conversion of a very bold and wicked 
man, says, ^' But why do I speak of him ? 



58 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPtRIT. 

We knew, and yet know, multitudes of such 
men who sinned, and still gloried in it, be- 
cause they feared no man, yet are now pat- 
terns of sobriety, fearing sin because they fear 
God/^ The goodly vine that was planted at 
this time struck its roots deep into the soil 
and spread its branches over the whole prov- 
ince of Uister, and, watched over by the heav- 
enly Husbandman, it is still bringing forth 
good fruit. How is it that the people of Uls- 
ter are to-day educated and industrious, hap- 
py and prosperous, while the rest of Ireland 
is poverty-stricken and distracted with lawless 
violence ? Any answer to this question will 
be exceedingly defective that does not point 
us to the powerful awakening during the first 
half of the seventeenth century. 

But trying times were in store for Presby- 
terianism in Ulster. Especially did it, in the 
course of time, suffer grievously from the with- 
ering blight of Unitarianism, which though, 
perhaps, the best heathenism, is the poorest 
Christianity the world has ever seen. And 



1 



REVIVALS IN IRELAND. 59 

although Unitarianism was^ after many a hard 
battle, driven from the field, a general indif- 
ference and deadness reigned throughout the 
whole province. The outward form of relig- 
ion was there, but the inner life was gone. 
Church organization was complete, but of 
spiritual power there was none. A corpse 
is as well organized as a living body. 

Many ministers and earnest Christians felt 
this spiritual death and mourned over it, and 
the burden of many an earnest prayer was, 
^' O Lord, revive thy work." Their prayers 
were answered in the great awakening of 1859. 
This was Annus Mirabilis, a year of wonders 
in Ulster. During the preceding year news 
of the extraordinary display of divine grace 
with which the American churches had just 
been visited was borne across the Atlantic 
and widely circulated through the country. 
That year the General Assembly devoted a 
portion of its sittings to special conference 
and prayer with reference to this great spirit- 
ual movement. These conferences were sea- 



60 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

sons of peculiar spiritual solemnity and sacred- 
ness; and "when one after another of the 
fathers rose up in his place to tender his pa- 
ternal counsels, and when the voice of praise 
and supplication ascended afterward to heav- 
en, all hearts were touched as by a common 
sympathy, while from the reigning harmony 
and fervor many fondly cherished the expec- 
tation of a time of more abundant blessing." 
The blessing came, but far beyond their expec- 
tations. It was indeed a "cloud-burst" of 
grace. Within one year eleven thousand were 
added to the Presbyterian Church alone. The 
Episcopal Church also largely shared in this 
wonderful work. Mr. Brownlow North, a 
member of that Church and an eminent evan- 
gelist, visited the country, was publicly ac- 
knowledged by the Presbyterian Assembly as 
an eminent servant of Christ, and preached 
in Piesbyterian pulpits, as well as in those 
of his own Church, with the happiest results. 
" When Christian love is at a low ebb," says 
the late Dr. James Hamilton, "the different 



REVIVALS IN IRELAND. 61 

sects stand apart, like shrimps in the pools 
on the sea-coast when the tide is low. Each 
company of shrimps lives in its own little 
pool, knowing or caring nothing about those 
in the other pools ; but when the tide rises 
and overflows the little pools, they are all 
brought into the same great ocean and form 
one family. Thus, w^hen Christian love is 
strong it overflows all minor differences ; it 
overcomes previous barriers, and all who love 
the Lord feel that they are brethren.^' So it 
was during the ^^year of grace ^^ with the dif- 
ferent branches of Christ's Church in Ulster. 
And a powerful revival of religion w^ould do 
more toward effecting a real union of the 
different branches of the Church of Jesus 
Christ in any country or place than any 
number of deputations, committees or reso- 
lutions can ever accomplish. 

The bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore 
bears the most gratifying testimony to the 
spiritual blessings of the revival, such as the 
careless aroused, the impure made pure, the 



62 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

drunkard reformed, the prayerless prayerful 
and every means of grace eagerly attended. 
From the queries addressed by His Lordship 
to the clergy of his diocese on the subject 
of this revival, I submit the following two, 
along with a number of answers from the 
clergy : 

Q. I. — ^^How has the revival operated in 
reference to your congregation — the attend- 
ance at the Lord's Table or at your school- 
house or cottage lectures?^' 

A. 1, — ^^I formerly had about twenty at a 
cottage lecture; for the last ten weeks there 
has been an average of about seven hundred 
every Thursday evening at an open-air serv- 
ice/^ 

A. 2. — " Hundreds leave my church unable 
to get in. Communion three times the former 
average/^ 

A. 3. — " The effect of the attendance on 
every means of grace has been almost mirac- 
ulous. The Sunday-morning service is more 
than double; the evening service has been 



REVIVALS IN IRELAND. 63 

increased sixfold, and the communion quad- 
rupled/^ 

A. 4.—^^ Congregation increased. School- 
house lecture overflowing. A most solemn 
feeling and deeply-seated earnestness charac- 
terizing all/^ 

Q. II. — ^^ Since the appearance of the re- 
vival have you observed any improvement in 
the habits of your people V^ 

A. 1. — ^^ Decidedly less drunkenness, less 
violation of the sanctity of the Lord's Day.'' 

A. 2. — ^^A most marked improvement. 
Drunkenness and other notorious vices have 
almost disappeared. In one large establish- 
ment the business of each day is commenced 
and ended with prayer." 

A. 3. — ^^A total change for the better; 
the police have confessed that they have 
little to do." 

A. 4. — "It is most gratifying to observe 
the habit of reading the Bible among families 
where it was before totally neglected — now 
become so prominent." 



64 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

A. 5. — "A reverence for religious subjects 
and a willingness to converse upon thera/^ 

A. 6. — ^^The habits of the people com- 
pletely changed. Formerly, drunkenness was 
the prevailing habit; now, sobriety. There 
had been a total neglect of family worship ; 
it is now very general.'' 

A. 7. — '' In almost every house and by the 
hedges I find the Bible read." 

A. 8. — ^^ Religion is the universal topic of 
conversation.'' 

A. 9. — " The general aspect of the place is 
changed." 

Here is another striking testimony to the 
good results of this revival. The speaker is 
the judge addressing the grand jury of the 
Coleraine county court. After observing that 
there was but one case on the calendar before 
him, and that an unimportant one, and after 
contrasting this happy state of affiiirs with 
his former experiences, when "calendars were 
filled with charges for different nefarious prac- 
tices," he asks, " How is such a gratifying 



REVIVALS IN IRELAND. 65 

state of things to be accounted for ? It must 
be from the improved state of the morality of 
the people. I believe I am fully warranted 
now to say that to nothing else than the maral 
and religious movement which commenced early 
last summer can the change be attributed. I 
can trace the state of your calendar to nothing 
else.^^ 

The origin of this revival is sometimes 
traced to a prayer-meeting composed of four 
young men who met in an old school-house 
near Kells. But its more remote source is 
probably a Sabbath-school teachers^ prayer- 
meeting at Tannybrake. It was held at the 
close of the Sabbath-school. Parents were 
especially invited. And the one great and 
absorbing topic was salvation through faith 
in Christ. The beginning of a revival is 
always hard^ perhaps impossible, to fix. We 
can see only a little way back, and that which 
we regard as a cause is itself only the effect 
of some previous cause. Whatever the hu- 
man agency employed, we must never forget 

5 



66 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

to give all the glory to the great First Cause. 
He alone can awaken the slumbering and 
quicken the dead. 

Reproach has been cast upon this revival 
because of the intense physical excitements 
that in some places characterized it Not 
that this element was absent from previous 
revivals in Ireland, England, Scotland or 
America; but it was far more intense and 
violent on the present occasion than in 
any other awakening yet mentioned. These 
^' physical agitations/^ " strikings/^ '' seiz- 
ures/^ '' prostrations/^ or whatever they may 
be called, have been variously accounted for. 
Some think they have sufficiently explained 
them by referring them to temperament, sym- 
pathy, hysteria, etc., but even admitting that 
they may be so referred, it is still open to in- 
quire if this in the least removes these phe- 
nomena from under the divine superintend- 
ence and control. Does not the Moral Gov- 
ernor rule by law in everything? Granting, 



REVIVALS IN IRELAND. 67 

therefore^ that these excitements may be ex- 
plained on some purely physical theory, may 
they still not have a most important and spir- 
itual mission? Some, again, have regarded 
them as the work of Satan and designed to 
frustrate the work of grace. And undoubt- 
edly, when God is doing a glorious work, Sa- 
tan will rage and to his utmost intrude, and 
by intermingling his work darken and hinder 
as much as possible God^s work. But we are 
not left without a sure test to determine what 
is a work of God and what a work of the 
devil. Satan does not cast out Satan. And 
when we see a great reformation take place 
in a community ; when we see multitudes of 
men suddenly turned from their intemperance, 
Sabbath-breaking, profanity, uncleanness and 
worldliness ; when we see error, sin, and sel- 
fishness giving way to truth, holiness and love, 
— we say, unhesitatingly, this is not the work 
of Satan, but a great and glorious work of 
God. And we will hold our conviction none 
the less firmly because the change has been 



68 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

brought about not in ways of our choosing or 
devising. 

Many eminent tiieologians, such as Dr. 
Gibson and President Edwards, regard these 
physical phenomena as the work of the Holv 
Spirit through various agencies, and gracious- 
ly designed to glorify God by making a direct 
appeal to the senses of the unbelieving and 
the careless. It is well known that in Ire- 
land infidels and scoffers who came to see and 
ridicule the work were frequently stricken 
down, and thus convicted and converted and 
made monuments to the power of the Spirit 
of God. It is not, however, the purpose of 
these articles to promulgate any special theory 
of revivals. Our object will be attained if we 
succeed only in imparting useful information, 
removing unseemly prejudices and awakening 
a more widespread and earnest cry for a work 
of grace throughout our land. AVe are will- 
ing to leave the Holy One of Israel to do his 
work in liis own way. May the Spirit de- 
scend upon us as the gentle dew, silently im- 



REVrVAI^ IN IRELAND. 69 

parting life^ growth^ and beauty ; but if God 
so will it, let him come with the thunder and 
the lightning and the storm. It is a good 
thing if under any circumstances men are 
awakened from the slumber of death and 
brought to rejoice in a new life. Better, 
sure, to breast the roaring surge on the live 
ocean and speed on before the favoring gale, 
than lie becalmed and motionless amid the 
stagnation and putridity of the waveless sea 
of death. Give us the roar of the raging 
cataract rather than the deadly miasma of 
the stagnant, putrid pool. 

We cannot here dwell upon the Moody 
and Sankey revival in Ireland in 1874. 
This awakening was in many respects a 
striking contrast to that of 1859, and sim- 
ilar to that by the same men in Scotland, al- 
ready noticed. No wild excitements, but quiet- 
ness, order and profound solemnity prevailed. 
The size of the meetings was determined by 
that of the largest buildings in Belfast, Lon- 
donderry and Dublin. Over eight hundred 



70 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

ministers of all the evangelical denominations 
took part in the work. At some of the meet- 
ings there were as many as seven hundred and 
fifty inquirers ; and at one meeting two thou- 
sand persons professed to have given their 
hearts to Christ during the preceding six 
months. Thus Zion put on her robes of 
salvation and converts to Jesus were multi- 
plied as the drops of the morning dew. 



CHAPTER VI. 

REVIVALS IN AMERICA, 
THE "great awakening'^ OF 1729-35 — 

JONATHAN EDWARDS AND HIS CO-WORK- 
ERS — " THE REVIVAL OF 1 800 ^' AND SOME 
OF THE GLORIOUS RESULTS— VARIOUS TES- 
TIMONIES, INCLUDING THAT OF THE PRES- 
BYTERIAN GENERAL ASSEMBLY — THE FUL- 
TON STREET PRAYER-MEETING. 

" Oh, sirs/' said a wise and good man on 
his deathbed, "I dread mightily that a ra- 
tional sort of religion is coming among us. I 
mean by this a religion that consists in a bare 
attendance on outward duties and ordinances, 
without the power of godliness.'^ Such was 
the state of religion throughout the American 
colonies at the beginning of the eighteenth 
century. Church machinery, indeed, there 

71 



72 OUTPOUBINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

was in abundance, but the power of godli- 
ness was sadlv wantino*. As the author of 
The Tongue of Fire would say, the cannon 
was there and the ball and the powder, but 
each was powerless in itself, and all put to- 
gether were powerless, for the fire was not 
there. Jonathan Edwards says : '^ It was a 
time of extraordinary dullness in religion." 
A sort of moral chloroform had put the 
Church to sleep. The old people thought 
only of their work, the young only of their 
play. Sin abounded. God was forgotten. 
But where sin abounded, grace did much 
more abound. When God is going to ac- 
complish a glorious word he usually does it 
upon very unpromising material. " I fully 
believe," says Spurgeon, "that the darkest 
time of any Christian Church is just the 
period when it ought to have most hope, 
for when the Lord has allowed us to spin 
ourselves out till there is no more strength 
in us, then it is that he will come to our 
rescue." This is in accordance with the 



REVIVALS IN AMERICA. 73 

promises. It is not the field where there 
is some good growth already, but the wil- 
derness where nothing grows and nothing 
is to be seen but dry sand and barren 
rocks, that is converted into ^' a fruitful 
field/^ It is not the good soil, but ^^the 
dry land,^^ that is made ^^ springs of water/' 
Hear the word of the Lord : ^^ I will give 
waters in the icilderness and rivers in the 
desert, to give drink to my people, my 
chosen/' Thus the power and freeness of 
divine grace are more conspicuous, and God 
in all things is glorified. 

Such was the experience of the American 
churches at the time of " The Great Awak- 
ening '^ extending from 1729-35. The dry 
bones were ^^ very many and very dry,'' but 
a mighty breath of the Spirit came upon 
them, imparting to them life and beauty 
and power, and they stood up upon their 
feel, '^an exceeding great army." The en- 
emy came in like a flood and threatened to 
overrun and sweep away all that was precious, 



74 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

but the Spirit of the Lord lifted up a stand- 
ard for the people. In the midijt of the 
prevailing irreligion, apostasy and profligacy 
there were those who cried day and night 
that the Lord would refresh his weary her- 
itage. 

'' If/^ says the prince of preachers, quoted 
above, '' there be only two or three whose 
hearts break over the desolations of the 
Church, if we have only half a dozen that 
resolve to give the Lord no rest till he estab- 
lish and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth, 
we shall see great things yet. If they will 
have souls saved, if so they plead and ago- 
nize, oh, then the Lord will turn his gracious 
hand and send a plenteous stream of blessing 
upon their district.'^ Has he not said, ^^ When 
the poor and the needy seek water, and there 
is none, and their tongue faileth them for thirst, 
I the Lord will hear them. I the God of Is- 
rael will not forsake them ; I will open rivers 
in high j^laces and fountains in the midst of 
the valleys. I will make the wilderness a 



REVIVALS IN AMERICA. 75 

pool of water, and the diy laud springs of 
water '' ? 

Jonathan Edwards, Whitefield, Noyes, Wil- 
liam and Gilbert Tennent, David Brainerd and 
Samuel Davies were the foremost among those 
raised up at this time to arouse a slumbering 
Church and awaken a dead world. The re- 
vival extended over the whole of the New 
England colonies, and it was reckoned that 
during its continuance upward of one hun- 
dred thousand souls were brought to Christ. 
Edwards said of it : " It is evident that it is a 
very great and wonderful and exceedingly glo- 
rious work of God, such as has never been 
seen in New England, and scarcely ever has 
been heard of in any land/^ Describing the 
awakening in his own town of Northampton, 
this eminent divine says : " There was scarce- 
ly a single person in the town, either old or 
young, that w^as left unconcerned about the 
great things of the eternal world. Those that 
were wont to be the vainest and loosest, and 
those that had been most disposed to think 



76 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

slightly of vital and experimental religion, 
were now generally subject to great awak- 
enings. And the work of conversion was 
carried on in a most astonishing manner, 
and increased more and more ; souls did, as 
it were, come by flocks to Jesus Christ. . . . 
The work of God, as it was carried on and 
the number of true saints multiplied, soon 
made a glorious alteration in the town. 
People w^ere now done with their old quar- 
rels, backbitings and intermeddling with other 
men's matters ; the tavern was soon left empty. 
The place of resort was now changed ; it was 
no longer the tavern, but the minister's house ; 
and that was thronged far more than ever tlie 
tavern had been wont to be. . . . The town 
seemed to be full of the presence of God ; it 
never was so full of love nor so full of joy, 
and yet so full of distress, as it was then. 
There were remarkable tokens of God's pres- 
ence in almost every house. It was a time of 
joy in families on account of salvation being 
brought to them — parents rejoicing over their 



I 



REVIVALS IN AMERICA. 77 

children as new-borD, husbands over their 
wives, and wives over their husbands. The 
goings of God were then seen in his sanc- 
tuary ; God's day was a delight and his taber- 
nacles were amiable. Our public assemblies 
were then beautiful; the congregation was 
alive in God's service, every one earnestly 
intent on the public worship, every hearer 
eager to drink in the words of the minister 
as they came from his mouth ; the assembly 
in general were, from time to time, in tears 
while the word was preached, some weeping 
with sorrow and distress, others with joy and 
love, others with pity and concern for the 
souls of their neighbors.'' 

A little more than half a century from this 
awakening brings us to what is known as the 
"Great Revival of 1800." This extended 
over the whole of the United States, but was 
most powerfully felt in the region extending 
from the Allegheny Mountains westward to 
the borders of civilization and in the South- 
ern States. Great meetings were held in the 



78 OUTPOUKINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

open air, usually in the forest and under the 
green foliage of the trees. In Kentucky, par- 
ticularly, was the mighty power of God felt. 
Here the revival began at a Presbyterian 
meeting under the ministry of two brothers 
called McGee, one a Presbyterian minister 
and the other a Methodist. Vast multi- 
tudes attended the meetings, many coming 
from ten to fifty miles to witness the work. 
'^The people,'^ says one, ^^fell under the 
preaching like corn before a storm of 
wind," and many were converted. The be- 
ginning of the present century was indeed 
a time of refreshing throughout nearly all 
Christian lands. There was a general shak- 
ing of the valley of dry bones. God mani- 
fested himself in his glory in building up 
Zion. Evangelical religion then made the 
grandest advance since the days of Martin 
Luther. Then originated the British and 
American Bible Societies, by which already 
millions of copies of the word of God have 
been distributed in about three hundred of the 



REVIVALS IN AMERICA. 79 

languages and dialects of the earth. Then 
also commenced nearly all the modern home 
and foreign missionary efforts of the evan- 
gelical churches, being a direct result of the 
gracious refreshing. And we confidently 
believe that the good work then begun 
will go on and on until the universal and 
final effusion of the Spirit shall restore the 
whole of this lost world to God. 

To write the history of this great revival 
in America would be to write the religious 
history of nearly every State and city and 
town in the Union for a number of years. 
The well known Dr. Gardiner Spring of 
New York thus writes : " From the year 
1800 down to the year 1825 there was an 
uninterrupted series of these celestial visita- 
tions spreading over different parts of the 
land. During the whole of these twenty- 
five years there was not a month in w^hich 
we could not point to some village, some city, 
some seminary of learning, and say, ' Behold 
what God hath wrought !^ '' 



80 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

Dr. Samuel Ralstou says of it : " That this 
is a gracious work of the Spirit of God is 
apparent to me from the effects it has pro- 
duced. It has reclaimed the wicked and the 
profligate, and transformed the lion into a 
lamb. It has brought professed deists to 
become professed Christians, and turned their 
cursings into blessings and their blasphemies 
into praises. Its good effects have readied all 
ranks, ages, sexes and colors — the African as 
well as the European and American. The 
combined hordes of deists, hypocrites and 
formalists are generally opposed to it. Some 
also have fallen away, but this is no objec- 
tion, but rather an evidence that it is the 
work of the Spirit of God.'^ This revival 
was, in the opinion of many, one of the most 
extraordinary that ever visited the Church of 
Christ. " Surely," said Bishop Asbury, " we 
mav say our Pentecost is fully come this vear." 
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church in 1803 bore the most unqualified 
testimony to the extent and power of the 



I 



EEYIVALS IN AMERICA. 81 

work. A single quotation must suffice : 
" There is/^ it says, " scarcely a Presbytery 
under the care of the Assembly from which 
some pleasing intelligence has not been an- 
nounced ; and from some of these communi- 
cations have been made which so illustriously 
display the triumphs of evangelical truth and 
the power of sovereign grace as cannot but 
fill with joy the hearts of all who love to 
hear of the prosperity of the Redeemer's 
kingdom.^' 

Some of the results of the revival of 1800 
I have already indicated. And here it ought 
to be mentioned that most of the theological 
schools of the United States were the out- 
growth of this revival. In 1810 the General 
Assembly decided to erect a seminary ^' to 
train up persons for the ministry who shall 
be lovers as well as defenders of the truth as 
it is in Jesus — -friends of revivals of religion 
and a blessing to the Church of God.'^ The 
institution in the year 1812 was located at 
Princeton, N. J._, and many of the most de- 
6 



82 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

voted Presbyterian ministers in the land have 
received their theological training there. 

Very soon afterward many other seminaries 
sprung up in other parts of the land as a re- 
sult of this revived interest in religion. Among 
these the following may be mentioned: Au- 
burn, the Western Seminary, Columbia, Lane, 
Union and Danville. Eternity alone can tell 
the good accomplished by these schools of the 
prophets in sending out preachers of the glo- 
rious gospel '' who have been lovers as well as 
defenders of the truth as it is in Jesus — friends 
of revivals of religion and a blessing to the 
Church of God.^^ Space forbids us dwelling 
at length upon the ^^ Fulton Street Prayer- 
Meeting Revival'' of 1857, so small in its 
beginning, but so mighty in its development. 
The voice of prayer and praise was heard in 
theatre and warehouse and blacksmith-shop' 
and factory, and the noisy cries of the mart 
were drowned out by the more earnest cries 
of the people, " Men and brethren, what shall 
we do?'' 



EEVIVALS IN AMERICA. 83 

I close this chapter with the words of Pres- 
ident Humphrey of Amherst College : ^^ After 
all that our eyes have seen and our ears have 
heard I marvel that any one should look with 
suspicion on revivals. Rather let us hail 
them^ in this midnight of tribulation, as the 
harbinger of the light of seven days '' (Isa. 
30 : 26). 



CHAPTER yil. . 

REVIVALS IN CANADA. 

SOURCES OF INFORMATION — THE AWAKEN- 
ING OF 1800 EXTENDED INTO CANADA — 
^^ THE REVIVAL CONFERENCE ^^ — FLATTER 



LY METHODIST AND PRESBYTERIAN REVI- 
VALS — A CAUTION — THE OLD COMMUNION 
SEASON OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH — 
RESULTS — PRESENT DUTY. 

Accounts of revivals in other lands have 
been written by inspired and uninspired men, 
but the narrative of revivals in Canada has 
not yet, so far as the writer is aware, en- 
gaged the pen of any historian. The Cana- 
dian churches have, however, at various times 
enjoyed gracious visitations, the accounts of 

84 



REVIVALS IN CANADA. 85 

which, apart from incidental notices by the 
historians Playter and Gregg, must be gath- 
ered from church records, from the ephemeral 
prints of the day and from the grateful mem- 
ories of the Lord^s people. Though such sea- 
sons have never been witnessed in Canada as 
Whitefield and Wesley saw in England, Liv- 
ingstone in Scotland, Gibson in Irehmd or 
Edwards in America, the Christians in Can- 
ada have not been left without tokens of 
the presence of the Lord, and many congre- 
gations can recall seasons when the divine 
power was wonderfully manifested in the 
quickening of saints and in the conversion 
of sinners. 

The great awakening of 1800 in the United 
States, already described, extended into Can- 
ada, up along the shore of Lake Ontario, even 
to the head of the lake, to Niagara, and thence 
to Long Point on the north-western shore of 
Lake Erie. This gracious work is closely as- 
sociated with the name of Rev. eToseph Jewell, 
a Methodist minister who traveled throughout 



86 OUTPOrRIXGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

this newly-settled district, preaching in log 
houses, in barns and sometimes in groves, 
and everywhere beholding the power and 
grace of God. About this same time a 
powerful work of grace was carried on in 
the district of Xiagara, chiefly through the 
instrumentality of Rev. Joseph Sawyer. 

In 1805 was convened at Elizabethtown 
what has since been usually known among 
Methodists as " the Revival Conference." 
^^No other conference in Canada,'^ says 
Playter the historian, "is like it, nor any 
other session of an annual conference in 
Great Britain or the United States. The 
awakening and converting power of God 
has appeared frequently at these sessions, 
but at none of which there is any record 
where the divine power was so greatly 
manifested and with such results.'^ It has 
been reckoned that during the five days 
the conference was in session more than 
one hundred persons were awakened, and 
the total increase of membership from this 



REVIVALS IN CANADA. 87 

blessed revival at the Elizabethtown Con- 
ference was about fourteen hundred. 

Again I quote the historian already named : 
" In this great revival the labors of the preach- 
ers, local and traveling, were very great, and 
some wrought for God beyond their strength. 
... A great impression was made on the pub- 
lic mind by the strange, sometimes wonderful, 
change of character and life in so many per- 
sons and in so short a time. The youug had 
forsaken their frivolities, and were now seri- 
ous, fond of the Bible and seeking knowledge 
to make them useful. Those indifferent to 
religion, lovers of pleasure, and not lovers 
of God, were now zealous for the truth and 
lovers of the Sabbath. The quarrelsome had 
learned in meekness and love to bear with evil 
ones and to forgive. Many drunkards had 
substituted a resort to the house of God for 
the tavern, the psalms and hymns for the 
songs of Bacchus, and cleanliness and sobri- 
ety for rags and strong drink. Rude com- 
panies and neighborhoods loved the devout 



88 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

assemblies of the saints, spent their Sabbaths 
in the house of God and became orderly, civil 
and hospitable/' 

Thus the Methodist Church in Canada, as 
in England, was born in a revival, and from 
the commencement to the present day she has 
been pre-eminently a revival Church. 

Other branches of the evangelical churches 
in our land have had their times of refresh- 
ing. At present we shall refer only to those 
in the Presbyterian Church. The readers of 
Dr. Gregg's History of Presbyter ianism in 
Canada^ pp. 534-551, will learn how largely 
early Presbyterianism was blessed with sea- 
sons of revival. 

As early as 1 809, Rev. D. W. Eastman of 
the American Presbyterian Church preached 
in the Niagara peninsula. For about twenty- 
five years he labored alone in a wild and com- 
paratively uncultivated field. In 1830 two 
or three other ministers joined him. In 1833 
the Niagara Presbytery was formed, and from 
a narrative prepared by a committee of that 



REVIVALS IN CANADA. 89 

Presbytery, and embodied in Dr. Gregg^s 
History y I extract the following : " From 
that time (1830) to the present God has 
greatly enlarged our Zion. This he has 
done, so far as means are concerned, chiefly 
by protracted meetings. These commenced 
in the churches under Mr. Eastman's care, 
and they have been held in many places 
within our bounds with the most blessed 
results.'^ Of these meetings in the church 
at Gainsborough the Presbytery says : '' Truly 
it was a time of the right hand of the Most 
High. The Spirit of the Lord was poured 
out in rich eifusions, humbling and quicken- 
ing his people, filling their hearts with com- 
fort and converting sinners to Christ. Be- 
tween seventy and eighty, we believe, were 
born into the kingdom of God, about fifty 
of whom at once united with the Church.'^ 
Special mention is made by the Presbytery 
of revivals about this time in the churches 
at South Pelham, Hamilton, St. Catharine's, 
Chippewa, Drummoudville, Brantford, Era- 



90 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

mosa and Esquesing. It is interestiDg to 
notice that at this early date so much at- 
tention was given to the religious instruc- 
tion of the young and to the temperance 
cause. In the Presbytery's narrative it is 
recorded that there was a temperance so- 
ciety in connection with each congregation, 
and in some cases we are informed that 
every member of the church was also a 
member of the temperance society. Is not 
a revival of this kind greatly needed at the 
present day ? 

Let us guard against a dangerous error. 
Many hear of a revival, and instantly there 
are associated in their minds a series of 
crowded meetings, fervid preaching, much 
emotional singing, many manifest conver- 
sions, many anxious inquirers and much 
religious excitement. But let us beware. 
There may be much that is outward and 
demonstrative, and yet no true revival. It 
is no evidence that a man has wings and 
can fly because a tornado puts its suction 



I 



REVIVALS IN CANADA. 91 

upon him^ lifts him up and hurls him 
across the street; and it is no evidence that 
a man is converted because a tremendous 
physical excitement lifts him for a moment 
out of the slough of his bad habits, blows 
the mud oflF him and crazes him, so that 
he talks and screams in the language of 
virtuous insanity. Then, on the other hand, 
there may be a true revival of religion wliere 
the Spirit of God comes down like the dew, 
gently, silently, imparting life, beauty, vigor ; 
where God is heard, not in the thunder and 
the storm, but in the still small voice ; where 
the convicted take each step deliberately, per- 
ceiving it to be a duty, and the converts come 
into the Church quietly and beautifully as 
buds and blossoms to a tree. Wherever 
saints are being quickened and sinners con- 
verted and an impulse given to the cause of 
true religion we should gratefully recognize 
the special work of the Spirit. The ideal 
state of a Church is undoubtedly when each 
member thereof is so pervaded with the 



92 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

Spirit of Christ, so "filled with all the 
fullness of God/^ that revival in the pop- 
ular sense \Yould be impossible. There may 
be no " floods upon the dry ground/^ but if 
the genial showers regularly descend and the 
enlivening sun shed his beams, there will be 
life and growth and beauty. 

Were not the old communion seasons in 
the Presbyterian Church days of hallowed 
influences? Who that has enjoyed them 
can ever forget those sweetly solemn sacra- 
mental occasions? Then the Lord made a 
feast of fat things, and the King sat at his 
table, and the spikenard sent forth the smell 
thereof; then believers sat under his shadow 
and found his fruit sweet to their taste. He 
brought them to his banqueting-house, and 
his banner over them was love. It was no 
unusual thing for persons to come thirty or 
forty miles to attend "the communion.^^ And 
so great was the concourse of hearers on these 
occasions that it was frequently found neces- 



REVIVALS IN CANADA. 93 

sary to have two separate assemblies^ one in 
the church and the other in some grove near 
by. The season lasted five days, beginning 
with Thursday. There were two or three 
services each day, and in a large and scat- 
tered country congregation there would be 
each evening from five to ten prayer-meet- 
ings in private houses in different parts of 
the congregation. Presbyterianism has al- 
ways been distinguished for ^^ decency and 
order.^' This distinctive characteristic was 
observable in all the communion services. 
Each of the five days had its own distinc- 
tive name, indicating the general character of 
the services on that day. This was especial- 
ly the case among the Gaelic section of the 
Church. I will give these distinctive names 
in both tongues : Thursday was called the 
Day of Humiliation or Fast Day {La Tras- 
gaidh) ; Friday was the day of Self-exam- 
ination (La Rannso.ichaidh) ; Saturday was 
the Day of Preparation (ia Ulluchaidh) ; 
Sabbath was the Day of Communion (La 



9-i OUTPOURINOS OF THE SPIRIT. 

Comunnaidh) ; and Monday was the Day of 
Thanksgiving (ia TaingeaUchd,) 

The various religious services of prayers, 
singing, sermons, exhortations, and the per- 
sonal conversation of each day always had 
respect to the uniform subject of that day. 
Monday was the last, and not mfrequently 
the great, day of the feast. Joy commingled 
with sorrow filled the hearts of the Lord's 
people — joy because of the spiritual and 
social blessings of the season, but profound 
sorrow that now the communion was at its 
close and they were about to separate and 
return to their distant homes, many of 
them not expecting to meet again for an- 
other year — i, e, till the next communion 
season. ^^When shall we have a commun- 
ion without a Monday?'^ was an expression 
on the lips of many, and meaning, When 
shall we meet to pait no more? Most of 
these grand old saints are now enjoying their 
communion without a Monday. May the 
sons be worthv of the fathers ! The com- 



II 



I 



REVIVALS IN CANADA. 95 

munion season occurred yearly, and was a 
^^time of refreshing" to Christians, giving 
spiritual tone to the religious life during the 
whole year. Under the ministry of Richard 
Baxter there were, we are told, long streets in 
the town of Kidderminster on which there 
was not one house that had not its hours of 
prayer. But the writer knows whole dis- 
tricts of Ontario where there were conces- 
sions many miles in length on which there 
were few, if any, houses where prayers were 
not offered morning and evening and the 
sweet melody of psalms heard slowly and 
solemnly ascending to the God of heaven. 
The blessed results are to be seen at this 
day in the sobriety, industry and faith of 
their descendants. One such congregation 
known to the writer has given upward of 
forty men to the Christian ministry, and has 
sent forth not a few who have taken the very 
first place in the legal, teaching and medical 
professions. 

But we must not live in the past. "Act, 



96 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

act in the living present.'^ Wilt Thou not 
revive us again, that thy people may rejoice 
in thee? A genuine revival of religion 
throughout our land would do more in a 
single year to remove our commercial and 
financial troubles, and secure us against those 
national dangers which thoughtful people now 
see looming up in the distance, than our world- 
ly-wise politicians can accomplish in a decade 
of years. Dishonesty, private or public, in- 
temperance, immorality, infidelity, socialism, 
communism, or Jesuitism cannot prevail 
among a people who honor God and whose 
hearts are full of faith and of the Holy 
Ghost. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

REVIVALS AND THE YOUNG. 

RELIGIOUS INDIFFERENCE OF SO MANY 
OF THE YOUNG — VARIOUS CAUSES — THE 
CHIEF CAUSE IN THE HOME — ^PARENTAL. 
NEGLECT AND INCONSISTENCIES — HOW 

SHALL WE DEAL WITH THE EVIL? A 

PLEA FOR THE RESTORATION OF THE 
SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM TO ITS TRUE 

POSITION IN THE CHURCH A SOLEMN 

APPEAL. 

Why are so many of our youDg people 
undecided for Christ? How few of them 
attend the Bible-class or are seen in the 
weekly prayer-meetings or are engaged in 
any specific Christian work ! Five millions 
out of the seven millions of the young men 
of America were never, or practically never, 

7 97 



98 orTPouPwixGS of the spirit. 

inside a Christian church I Only five per 
cent, of them church-members, and only 
three per cent, engaged in any religious 
work I Whither are we drifting? There 
are breakers ahead. Is not American so- 
ciety ^' dying at the top ^' — that is, in its 
young men? May the Lord awaken his 
Church before it is too late ! A very large 
proportion of these young men are the chil- 
dren of Christian parents; they were early 
dedicated to God in baptism ; they have 
grown up under the ordinary influences of 
the home and the sanctuary ; and yet tliey 
have turned their backs upon the Church, 
ignoring alike the obligations and privileges 
of the Christian ; and millions of them are 
rushing forward into life's solemn responsi- 
bilities apparently without a single thought 
of consecrating themselves by personal act 
to the Lord. Here is how the official or- 
gan of one of the largest and most active 
churches in our land speaks : " The indif- 
ference manifested by the vast majority of 



REVIVALS AND THE YOUNG. 99 

young men is sufficient cause for solicitous 
alarm. Comparatively few of our young 
people, young men especially, are being con- 
verted. Thousands, especially in our cities, 
scarcely ever enter a place of worship, and 
very few are actively engaged in Chris- 
tian work. Many boys leave our Sunday- 
schools as soon as they grow into manhood, 
and gradually drift off from all church re- 
lations. Many others remain with us as 
regular attendants upon our public services, 
moral and respectable, but worldly and spir- 
itually indifferent.^^ 

Various causes have been assigned for this 
religious indifference on the part of so many 
of the young. The vigorous and aggressive 
skepticism of the day; the speculative and 
materialistic spirit of the age ; false views 
of liberty, properly called libertinism ; licen- 
tiousness ; eagerness to get wealth without re- 
garding the morality of the means ; the pop- 
ular amusements of society, and the excesses 
usually connected with them; the extensive 



100 OUTPOUEINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

reading of trashy, sensational literature, — ^all 
these are doing an incalculable amount of 
mischief by indisposing and unfitting mul- 
titudes of the young for serious reflection or 
the discharge of Christian obligation. In- 
temperance with its kindred vices and asso- 
ciations is making havoc of many souls. 
Then, again, the worldliness, the selfishness, 
the unkindness of many church-members, are 
repelling the young from the bosom of the 
Church, and driving them to seek enjoyment 
in the world and the things thereof. 

But, powerful as these evil agencies are, 
they do not by any means constitute a suf- 
ficient explanation of the indiiference — in 
some cases, positive aversion — to religion 
on the part of so many of the young. 
Would we trace this deplorable evil to its 
source, we must look beyond the mere tend- 
encies and temptations of our time — these 
are themselves but effects which are closely 
connected with certain causes; we must look 
beyond the imperfections of church-members 



REVIVALS AND THE YOUNG. 101 

—these are probably no greater in onr time 
than at any former age of the Church ; we 
must look to the home. What we want at 
the present day is a powerful revival of prac- 
tical piety in the family. We need a deeper 
and more scriptural sense of the importance 
of the family and its relation to the State 
and Church. ^^Out of families/^ says Lu- 
ther, ^'nations are spun.^' The character of 
the Church as well as of the nation is deter- 
mined in the home. There the first and 
strongest impressions are made, and an edu- 
cation is insensibly gained which schools can 
never supply nor after-influences ever efface. 
The family is God's institution (Gen. 2 : 18 ; 
Ps. 68 : 6), and for more than two thousand 
five hundred years after the Fall the knowl- 
edge of the true God was preserved among 
men chiefly by heads of families. In the 
absolute and long dependence of children 
upon their parents for the supply of nearly 
every want, God surely teaches us how sacred 
is the trust that lies in the mother's gentle 



102 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

arms and claims the father^s tenderest care. 
The young Iamb and the little nestling, with 
the whole animal creation, soon learn to take 
care of themselves. But the immortal child 
is first a helpless babe, and long an infant in 
body and mind, thrown upon the warm bos- 
om of maternal love, a delicate, sensitive, 
precious being — the charm of the house- 
hold, the gift of a beneficent God, to be 
nourished and brought up in God's fear and 
for his glory. 

Would we save our young people, we must 
begin at the beginning. We must begin our 
work, not in the world, nor in the Sunday- 
school, nor even in the church, but in the 
home, praying that God in his mercy would 
"turn the heart of the fathers to the children, 
and the heart of the children to the fiithers." 
Parents must carry their religious principles 
into daily practice. Their home-life must he 
a standing evidence of the power and value 
of religion. By little deeds of kindness, by 
gentle words, by wise counsels, by pleasant 



REVIVALS AND THE YOUNG. 103 

looks, by a loving spirit, and, when neces- 
sary, by Christian admonition, reproof, cor- 
rection, they must exhibit to their children 
the religion of Jesus. Nothing can com- 
pensate for the loss of parental example and 
instruction. 

In the prevailing lack of family religion 
and parental authority throughout our land 
we find a sufficient, tliough a sad, explanation 
of the youthful indifference and irreligion 
which we deplore. Young persons come to 
the church, the Sunday-school or the Bible- 
class, and they are taught the supreme claims 
of religion and the duty and privilege of pro- 
fessing faith in Christ. But they go home and 
see their parents — who, perhaps, are members 
of the Church — as selfish, as worldly, as fret- 
ful and irritable in temper as those who make 
no profession of religion. In the home they 
see little of the profession and less of the prac- 
tice of religion. The parents live from day 
to day as if money-making were everything, 
and religion only a thing of naught or at 



104 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

best only an old respectable custom. The 
public ordinances of religion, such as the con- 
gregational prayer-meeting or the Sabbath as- 
sembly, or even the observance of the Lord's 
Supper, are for the most trivial excuses neg- 
lected. And even where the parents attend 
upon these means, how often are the children 
left at home or allowed to wander no one 
knows where on the Sabbath ! Children see 
and feel all this, and instinctively reason, " If 
there were any great importance in religion ; 
if God and Christ and heaven and hell were 
what our ministei^ and teachers tell us they 
are, our fathers and mothers would not only 
tell us so, but they would be pious themselves. 
Our parents know better than we what is right 
and safe, and if they are not Christians why 
should w^e be concerned?" Is it surprising 
that under such home-influences so many 
young persons soon come to regard religion 
with indifference and all public profession 
of it with positive aversion ? — not a few of 
them living as if God were a myth, heaven 



REVIVALS AND THE YOUNG. 105 

* a dream, the atonement a cheat and eternity 
nothing ? 

How are we to deal with this great evil on 
the part of parents ? Does any one say it is 
vain to attempt to arouse our people to a right 
sense of duty on this matter? I reply. No 
good work is hopeless so long as there is a 
God of infinite power and grace in heaven. 
Let every pulpit in the land speak out 
faithfully, calling parents to repentance for 
their sin and warning the young of break- 
ing covenant with God. Let parents be 
exhorted to walk before their children with 
a perfect heart, praying not only for their 
children, but with them, taking them aside 
one by one for this purpose. John Newton 
is not the only one who has been saved 
from destruction by the memory of his moth- 
er's prayers. Let Christian example and 
fervent prayer be accompanied with faith- 
ful instruction. ^^And these words which I 
command thee, shall be in thine heart; and 
thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy 



106 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

children'' (Deut. 6 : 6, 7). First let the 
word of God dwell in the parent's own 
heart, and then let him seize every oppor- 
tunity to impress that word upon the ten- 
der mind of his child. The love, the sov- 
ereignty, the justice, the holiness and the 
goodness of God ; the perfect requirements 
of his law ; the lost condition of all men 
by nature; the only way of recovery 
through Jesus Christ; the necessity of a 
change of heart by the renewing of the 
Holy Ghost; and also of repentance to- 
ward God and faith in Christ, such faith 
as shall produce universal obedience to di- 
vine commands, — these are the leading truths 
of revelation with which the mind of the 
child should early be made familiar. 

Let the holy sacrament of baptism be 
restored from that condition of neglect and 
obscurity into which, alas ! it has in so many 
instances fallen, and let it receive that same 
prominence and reverence in the teaching of 
the Church that the other sacrament, that of 



REVIVALS AND THE YOUNG. 107 

the Lord's Supper, now receives, until parents 
clearly realize that baptism is not a '^ christen- 
ing'' or a mere '^ giving a name to the child,'^ 
but a solemn sacrament in which they recog- 
nize their child as the property of the Triune 
God, and enter into a covenant with God on its 
behalf. Then as the child grows up it should 
be taught the nature and design of its bap- 
tism as a dedication to God. In every spir- 
itual way it should be made to understand 
that God is its Proprietor and has supreme 
claims upon its love and obedience. A child 
thus instructed with meekness and tenderness 
will soon learn something of the nature and 
awful desert of sin and its own lost condition 
as a sinner. It will learn something of the 
character of Jesus and of his work as a Sa- 
viour. The heart of that child will go out to 
the Saviour, and it wnll be a delight to submit 
to that yoke which is easy and that burden 
which is light. Instead of being hardened 
by sin in the *^far country," such a child will 
never by bitter experience know what it is to 



I 



108 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

wander from his Father's house, and he will 
never remember the time when he did not 
love the name of Jesus. ^^ If parents/' says 
the holy Baxter, "were true to their vows 
in baptism, nineteen -twentieths of those con- 
secrated t-o God in infancy would grow up 
pious and dutiful, and when they came to 
mature years would personally assume the 
vows of their baptism by an open profes- 
sion of their faith at the Table of the 
Lord/^ 

" If God hath wrought,'' says Matthew 
Henry, "a good work in my soul, I desire 
in humble thankfulness to acknowledge the 
influence of my infant baptism upon it.'^ 
Well might an equally high authority say, 
" If infant baptism were more improved, it 
would be less disputed." Kind reader, whose 
eyes now scan these lines, are you a parent ? 
Then let me plead with you on behalf of 
tliose dearest to you in life. You are not, 
like the ostrich in the wilderness, indifferent 
to your offspring. Your heart is not made 



REVIVALS AND THE YOUNG. 109 

of the nether millstone. You love your chil- 
dren. Wei], then, can you think of them sin- 
ning against God, abiding under the wrath of 
the Most High, rushing forward to eternity, 
having no God and without hope, and yet 
horror not take hold of you? If you saw 
your child in the street and the wheels about 
to run over it, would you not rush to the res- 
cue? And can you see your child in danger 
of eternal destruction and yet not be moved 
to earnest, continued action to save it from 
the awful doom? Speak to your children 
concerning the soul and salvation ; do it with 
all the powerful oratory which the fond heart 
of a Christian parent can supply ; take them 
aside, one by one, and plead with them '^ day 
and night with tears f^ put them in mind of 
their early baptism ; explain to them the na- 
ture of that sacrament ; labor to make them 
esteem its privileges and to feel its obliga- 
tions ; bring them to the house of God with 
you ; walk in your house with a perfect heart ; 
pmy for your children as the Syro-Phoenician 



110 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

woman prayed for her child, — and the cov- 
enant God will be a God to you and to 
them. 

Or am I addressing one of the baptized 
children of the Church? Then I would 
speak an earnest word to you concerning 
your relationship to the Christian Church. 
God remembers your baptism. He remem- 
bers that your parents dedicated you to him 
and put his seal upon you. He would look 
upon you as his child. Will you not look 
upon him as your God ? Luther tells us of 
a pious woman who, when tempted to sin, 
replied, '' Baptizata sum^^ — I am baptized — 
and thus overcame. And so, my young 
friend, when you are tempted to sin or 
when you are living in neglect of duty, 
solemnly say to yourself, " I am baptized ; 
I have been sealed to God in a solemn 
covenant; I am not my own, I am God's; 
therefore I cannot yield to temptation or 
live in willful neglect of duty. I dare not 
repudiate the covenant made on my behalf 



EEVIVALS AND THE YOUNG. Ill 

with the Father, Son and Spirit. Rather 
will I anew dedicate myself to the God of 
my fathers, the God who loved me and cared 
for me in earliest infancy and through all the 
way of life, and I will seek grace to walk 
every day as in covenant with him.^^ 

Young and old, all you who fear the Lord 
and mourn over the desolations of Israel, 
come join in prayer for such a thorough 
revival of religion by the outpouring of the 
Holy Spirit as will break up the all-en- 
grossing spirit of world liness that so gen- 
erally pervades the homes of our land, caus- 
ing a great shaking among the dry bones — 
'' very many and very dry ^' — the divine 
breath entering in until our revived and 
quickened people, parents and children, shall 
stand upon their feet, an exceeding great 
army, ready and willing to do the Lord's 
work, whatever difficulties or discourage- 
ments may lie in the way. 



CHAPTER IX. 

EMINENT REVIVALISTS ANB HONORED 
TESTS. 

A MUCH-NEEDED CAUTION, WITH ILLUSTRA- 
TION — JOHN LIVINGSTONE AND KIRK OF 
SHOTTS — ORIGIN OF THANKSGIVING MON- 
DAY — WHITEFIELD AND THE THREE R'S 

TESTS — JONATHAN EDWARDS AND HIS 

GREAT SERMON — SOME OF HIS TEXTS AND 
THEMES — EDWARD PAYSON : HIS LIFE — 
TEXTS AND THEMES. 

We are not of those who love to exalt men 
or one class of Christian workers above an- 
other. No need to sound a trumpet for any, 
for when tlie great trumpet shall sound every 
man's work shall be reveakxl. The true 
Christian worker is like the harp which, as 
one says, sounds sweetly, yet bear's not its 

112 



REVIVALISTS AND TESTS. 113 

own melody. We are poorly qualified for 
comparing Christian workers^ and much harm 
has been done by unduly magnifying the office 
of the evangelist to the disparagement of the 
regular ministry. Two men enter a forest 
and toil hard during the winter months fell- 
ing the trees. Then when spring comes they 
spend long weary months chopping and log- 
ging and rooting and stumping, until, with 
great patience and perseverance, they succeed 
in gathering the whole into heaps. All over 
the ten acres there are the piles which result 
from their industry, and no one perhaps but 
themselves knows how much of labor it re- 
quired to accomplish such a result. It was 
hard work, but very quiet and obscure and 
seen only by a few. But one day a third 
man starts into the field with a shovel full 
of coals, and, applying them to a heap, sets it 
all ablaze. The flames leap up to the sky, 
and as he goes from heap to heap with his 
torch he soon has the whole field in a fury of 
fire and smoke, and people for miles around 

8 



114 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

see. and wonder. Who did all this ? Why, 
we are told, the man with the torch, who has 
run from pile to pile to start it blazing. It 
is thus ofttimes in the Church that laborious 
pastors work through long years of care and 
toil, getting things ready for somebody else to 
fire and put in motion. They preach and 
pray and teach and weep and agonize for a 
long, anxious time, and then the stranger 
arrives and by a few explosives ignites the 
heaps and sets all ablaze, and gets all the 
praise. 

Honor to whom honor is due. They that 
turn many to righteousness shall shine as the 
stars for ever and ever ; and our object in this 
chapter is to mention a few of these eminent 
workers, and especially to point out those 
precious passages of Scripture which in their 
hands were so wonderfully blessed by the 
Spirit. 

Monday, June 21, 1630, will ever remain 
a memorable day in the history of Scottish 
Presbyterianism. On that day John Living- 



REVIVALISTS AND TESTS. 115 

stone, twenty-seven years of age and not yet 
ordained, preached a sermon in the church- 
yard at Shotts under which five hundred souls 
were converted and a great work commenced 
which spread through the whole of Clydes- 
dale, and the results of which eternity alone 
will fully unfold. The circumstances were 
very interesting. The day before was a com- 
munion Sabbath, and the Spirit of God was 
evidently working mightily upon the hearts 
of the people. For several days previous 
much time had been spent in social prayer. 
After being dismissed on the Sabbath many 
spent the M^hole night in different companies 
in prayer. On the Monday morning the 
ministers, seeing the people still lingering, 
as if unwilling to leave a spot which had 
been to them as the very gate of heaven, 
agreed to have service on that day, though 
it was not usual at that time to preach on the 
Monday after communion. Young Living- 
stone was selected for the sermon. His dif- 
fidence, however, was great, and he was over- 



116 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

come with a sense of unworthiness and unfit- 
ness to speak on such a solemn occasion and 
in the presence of so many aged and more 
experienced ministers. Alone in the field in 
the morning, he began to think of stealing 
away rather than address the people, and 
had actually gone some distance, and was 
just about to lose sight of the kirk, when 
the words, '' Have I been a wilderness unto 
Israel? a land of darkness?'' (Jer. 2 : 31) 
were brought to his mind with such clear- 
ness and power that he durst no longer dis- 
trust God. He returned, took his stand upon 
a tombstone outside the church, and preached 
from the text (Ezek. 36 : 25, 26), ^^Then will 
I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall 
be clean.'' The rest I will give in his own 
words : '^ I had about an hour and a half on 
the points I had meditated on ; and in the 
end, offering to close with some words of ex- 
hortation, I was led on about an hour's time 
with such liberty and melting of heart as I 
never had the like in public all my life." 



I 



BEVIVA LISTS AND TESTS. 117 

The first iDcIication of awakening among the 
people was in this way : During the time 
Mr. Livingstone was preaching there was a 
soft shower of rain, and when the people 
began to move about he said, " What a mercy 
it is that the Lord sifts that rain through 
these heavens on us, and does not rain down 
fire and brimstone as he did upon Sodom and 
Gomorrah !^' After this the practice, still ob- 
served in most Presbyterian churches, of hav- 
ing a thanksgiving service on the Monday 
following the sacrament, became general in 
Scotland. 

Whitefield has been characterized as '' the 
Field Evangelist.'^ His epitaph records that 
he was born at Gloucester, England, Dec. 
16, 1714; educated at Oxford University; 
ordained in 1736; that in a ministry of 
thirty-four years he crossed the Atlantic 
thirteen times and preached over eighteen 
thousand sermons. His average congrega- 
tion was two thousand ; frequently he 
preached to ten thousand ; at Philadelphia 



118 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

to twenty thousand ; at Boston Commons 
to thirty thousand ; and at Moorfield to 
sixty thousand ! He had a voice of won- 
derful richness and pathos, and his deliv- 
ery, according to Southey, was perfect. His 
subject was alsvays one or all of the three 
R's — Ruin, Regeneration, Redemption : man 
ruined wholly, eternally ruined by the fall ; 
man regenerated by the Spirit and made a 
new creature in Christ Jesus ; man redeemed 
from all his sins by the precious blood of 
Christ. He always honored God, and God 
honored him, and made him as a mighty 
angel flying from country to country, preach- 
ing the everlasting gospel to every creature. 
Some of his most frequent sayings were : 
"Let us be all heart ;^^ "The world wants 
more heat than light ;'^ "Lord, make us all 
flames of fire;'^ "We are immortal till our 
work is done.'^ I subjoin a number of the 
texts from which he most frequently preached : 
Jer. 6:14:" Saying Peace, peace ; when 
there is no peace.'^ 



EEVIVA LISTS AND TESTS. 119 

John 9 : 35 : " Dost thou believe on the 
Son of God ?" 

Jer. 23 : 6 : " The Lord our Righteous- 
ness." 

Acts 26 : 28 : " The Almost Christian." 

John 5 : 39 :"The Duty of Searching 
the Scriptures." 

Acts 19 : 2: "Marks of having Received 
the Holy Ghost." 

1 Cor. 6 : 11 : "Justification by Christ." 

1 Cor. 2 : 11 : "Satan's Devices." 

2 Cor. 5 : 17 : "Regeneration." 

Eph. 5 : 18: "The Sin of Drunkenness." 

Matt. 25 : 46 : " The Eternity of Hell Tor- 
ments." 

Josh. 24 : 15 : " The Great Duty of Family 
Religion." 

Ps. 46 : 1-6 : " Christ the Believer's Ref- 
uge." 

Gen. 5 : 24: "Walking with God." 

Ps. 45 : 10, 11: "Christ the Best Hus- 
band." 

Isa. 54 : 5 : " Thy Maker is thy Husband." 



120 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

This last was the text that was most blessed 
while he was preaching in Scotland ; and most 
of those who were converted through the in- 
strumentality of this sermon were men. 

Jonathan Edwards is thus described by Mr. 
Prince in his Christian History: ^^ He was a 
preacher of a low and moderate voice, a nat- 
ural delivery, and without any agitation of 
body or anything else in his manner to excite 
attention except his habitual and great solem- 
nity, looking and speaking as in the presence 
of God and with a weighty sense of the mat- 
ter delivered. ^^ The best known of his ser- 
mons is that on ^^ Sinners in the Hand of an 
Angry God.'' The text is Deut. 32 : 35 : 
^^To me belongeth vengeance and recom- 
pense; their foot shall slide in due time; 
for the day of their calamity is at hand, 
and the things that shall come upon them 
make haste." It was preached during the 
time of the *^ Great Awakening," and was 
accompanied with extraordinary manifesta- 
tions of the Spirit's power. As Edwards 



REVIVALISTS AND TESTS. 121 

preached, suddenly the Holy Ghost descend- 
ed, the people began to tremble and even 
cry out under the terrors of conviction, and 
the awakening spread through all the New 
England colonies, and many thousands were 
added to the Lord. The following are some 
of Edwards' themes and texts, and from them 
may be gained a pretty clear idea of the 
truths that were so wonderfully blessed in 
his hands : 

Ps. 94 : 9-11 : ''Man's Natural Blindness 
in the Things of Religion.'' 

Rom. 5 : 10 : '* Men naturally God's Ene- 
mies." 

Rom. 4:5: " Justification by Faith alone." 
Rev. 5 : 5, 6 : " The Excellency of Christ." 
Ps. 25 : 11 : '' Pardon for the Greatest Sin- 



ner." 



John 14 : 27: "The Peace which Christ 

Gives to his People." 

Rom. 9:18: ''God's Sovereignty." 
Deut. 32 : 35 : " Sinners in the Hand of 

an Angry God." 



122 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

Ps. 65 : 2 : " The Most High a Prayer- 
hearing God/' 

Heb. 11 : 13, 14: ^'The Christian's Life a 
Journey toward Heaven." 

Edward Payson was born at Rindge, New 
Hampshire, July 25, 1783, and died at Port- 
land, Me., Oct. 22, 1827. His life was one 
of much physical suffering, occasional mental 
despondency, but uninterrupted and most joy- 
ous confidence in Christ as his personal and 
ever-present Saviour. Love to the Saviour 
and for the souls of men was with him an 
all-absorbing passion. His preaching was 
characterized by extraordinary pathos and so- 
lemnity, but the most remarkable thing about 
him was his prayers. These were just the out- 
pourings of a soul filled w^ith a glowing, ar- 
dent, overpowering affection for Christ. One 
who enjoyed his ministry for seven years says : 
^^ It was my custom to close my eyes when he 
began to pray, and it was always a letting 
down, a sort of rude fall, to open them again 
when he had concluded and find myself still 



EEVIVALISTS AND TESTS. 123 

on the earth. His prayers always took my 
spirit into the immediate presence of Christ, 
amid the glories of the spiritual world ; and 
to look around again on this familiar and com- 
paratively misty earth was almost painful." 
His ruling passion was strong in death. " The 
Celestial City/^ he said, " is full in my view. 
Its glories beam upon me, its breezes fan me, 
its odors are wafted to me, its sounds strike 
upon my ear, and its spirit is breathed into 
my heart. Nothing separates me from it but 
the river of death, which now appears but as 
an insignificant rill, that may be crossed at a 
single step whenever God shall give permis- 
sion. The Sun of Righteousness has been 
gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appear- 
ing larger and brighter as he approaches, and 
now he fills the whole hemisphere, pouring 
forth a flood of glory in w^hich I seem to float 
like an insect in the beams of the sun, exult- 
ing, yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this 
excessive brightness.'^ Among his last words 
were the following : ^^ The battle's fought ! the 



124 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIKIT. 

battle's fought ! and the victory is won ! the 
victory is won for ever. I am going to bathe 
in an ocean of purity and benevolence and 
happiness to all eternity." I subjoin a few 
of Payson's texts and themes : 

Dan. 5 : 27 : "Men Tried and Found De- 
fective.'' 

Job 22 : 5 : " Our Sins Infinite in Number 
and Enormity." 

1 Thess. 5 : 23: "Amiable Instincts not 
Holiness." 

2 Cor. 5 : 10 : " The Final Judgment." 
Matt. 23 : 33 : " The Difficulty of Escap- 
ing the Damnation of Hell." 

Jer. 22 : 24 : " Punishment of the Impen- 
itent Inevitable and Justifiable." 

John 6 : 37 : " Christ Rejects None that 
Come to Him." 

Gen. 15:16:^^ Why the Wicked are Spared 

for a Season." 

Jonah 1 : G : " The Sleeper Awakened." 
Mark 10 : 14 : '' How Little Children are 

Prevented from Coming to Christ." 



CHAPTER X. 

SHALL WE HAVE A REVIVAL f 

PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH AND OF THE 

WORLD — HUMAN AGENCY IN A REVIVAL 

THE MEANS : PLAIN, EARNEST PREACHING 
OF THE GOSPEL ; CONSECRATION OF LIFE ; 
PRAYER; PERSONAL EFFORT ; GIVING GOD 
ALL THE GLORY. 

Do we not need a revival ? Where is the 
congregation the members of which are as 
holy, as earnest, as prayerful, as liberal and 
as aggressive as they ought to be? Do not 
many professors rest in the mere form of 
religion? They have a name to live while 
they are spiritually dead. Do not the vast 
majority of Christians live far below their 
privileges, satisfied with a mere glimpse of 
Christ^s pardon, a mere crumb from his table, 

125 



126 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

a mere drop of his love ? Think of the mul- 
titudes outside the Church who do not even 
profess any interest in Christ or give any evi- 
dence of a change of heart. In the light of 
God's truth how sad their condition^ how ter- 
rible their danger ! Try to realize it. .White- 
field saw it, and sometimes standing before the 
thousands, he could only exclaim, '' The wrath 
to come ! The wrath to come !'' and, overcome 
with emotion, sit down again. Paul felt it, 
and you know how he expresses his agony for 
the salvation of souls as a travailing in birth 
(Gal. 4 : 19). The Psalmist saw it and felt 
the danger of the unconverted : '' Horror hath 
taken hold upon me because of the wicked that 
forsake thy law^' (Ps. 119 : 53); and again: 
"Rivei^ of waters run down mine eyes be- 
cause they keep not thy law'' (Ps. 119 : 136). 
Isaiah saw it, and hear his language : " There- 
fore, said I, Look away from me, I will weep 
bitterly ; labor not to comfort me, because of 
the spoiling of the daughter of my people ^' 
(Isa. 22 : 4). Jeremiah saw it, and hear him : 



SHALL WE HAVE A REVIVAL? 127 

" Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes 
a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and 
night for the slain of the daughter of my peo- 
ple ^^ (Jer. 9:1). 

But where is this weeping, this intense 
earnestness, this intense soul-agony, on the part 
of the Lord's people at the present day be- 
cause of the souls perishing around us ? Six 
millions of people die every year, the vast 
majority of them professing no interest in 
Christ. The whole world lieth in the evil 
one. The enemy is coming in like a flood. 
Intemperance, Sabbath profanation, licentious- 
ness, worldliness, fraud prevailing on every 
side. Only, as observed in a former chapter, 
five per cent, of the young men of America are 
members of any Church, and only three per 
cent, of them are doing any religious work, 
while seventy-five out of every hundred are 
practically never inside a church-door. The 
prospect is sufficiently appalling. Oh, sirs, 
the Church of Christ to-day is engaged in a 
terrible conflict. We need the baptism of the 



I 



128 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

Holy Ghost. Shall we not then cry, " O Lord, 
revive thy work V^ 

We are apt to regard a religious revival as 
a kind of miracle or as some arbitrary man- 
ifestation of the Almighty's power, given in 
his own time and without any reference to 
any action of his Church as a preparation for 
it. There is no use trying to '' work up a re- 
vival,^^ we often hear said. " A revival,^^ it 
is urged, ^^ depends upon the sovereign will 
of God, and we are not to move until there 
are unmistakable signs that God is about to 
commence a work of salvation, lest we run 
before we are sent, and injure the cause of 
religion.'^ All such reasoning is based upon 
an erroneous conception of the divine method. 
Undoubtedly a revival is a work of God, oth- 
erwise we need not pray, '' O Lord, revive thy 
work.^^ But God works through means in the 
spiritual as in the natural world ; and he has 
ordained that his people shall be co-workers 
with him in extending his kingdom. Tliey 
are to plant and to water, in order that he 



SHALL WE HAVE A REVIVAL? 129 

may give the increase. It is the Spirit that 
quickens believers and converts sinners ; and 
the Spirit is given not in any arbitrary man- 
ner or without regard to the human will, but 
in answer to prayer and to render the human 
agency successful. A revival is thus in an 
important sense the result of means employed 
by the Church. If the Church is seeking a 
revival, she must "awake and put on her 
strength ;" she must stir herself to take hold 
of God. Isaiah said : "As soon as Zion tra- 
vailed she brought forth children f and it is 
true of the Church to-day. 

What, then, are the means which the Church 
should employ to promote revivals ? I answer, 
We must have much plain, earnest preaching 
of the gospel. The apostolic Church was a 
revived and revival Church, and it gave the 
very first place to preaching. The most strik- 
ing figure in the Pentecost scene is Peter stand- 
ing up to preach in the company of his breth- 
ren. Wherever the apostles went it is said, 
" There they preached the gospel ;'' " they so 
9 



130 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

spake the word;^^ "the word of the Lord 
was published throughout all that region; ^^ 
" it pleased God by the foolishness of preach- 
ing to save them that believe/^ Preaching, 
then, is God^s chief means for advancing his 
kingdom. But remember, it must be the 
preaching of the gospel. However the ag- 
nostic may sneer and the ungodly rage, that 
preaching is the best preaching, the most 
efifective, the most edifying, the most soul- 
saving, that has the most of Christ in it. 
Such was PauFs preaching. He determined 
to know nothing save Jesus Christ. " I am 
not ashamed of the gospel,'^ he says. And 
when we say that Christ ought to be the sub- 
ject of every sermon, let no one think that 
the subject will ever grow threadbare — Christ 
in his divinity and humanity, in his person, 
his character, his work, as our wisdom, right- 
eousness, sanctification and redemption ; in his 
birth, life, death, miracles, parables, his prayers 
and his preaching ; Christ suffering and con- 
quering, Christ exalted and ruling, Christ alj 



SHALL WE HAVE A REVIVAL? 131 

in all ! Why, the subject is endless ; eternity 
cannot exhaust it. And it must be plain 
preaching if it is to aifect the masses. The 
hiding of the cross beneath the veil of fine 
language and the flowers of rhetoric is, I 
verily believe, the source of much of that 
want of sympathy with the Church which 
so sadly characterizes many in the lower 
ranks of society at the present day. And 
besides being plainly preached, the gospel 
must be earnestly preached. McCheyne was 
accustomed to visit some one or two of his 
dying parishioners on the Saturday with a 
view of being stirred up to greater earnest- 
ness in the Sunday's work. Of his preach- 
ing one says, '^ He appeared as if he were 
dying almost to have you converted.'' There 
is a beautiful legend of St. Chrysostom. He 
was a man of much culture and refinement, 
yet in his earlier ministry he was not re- 
markable for success. But one night he 
had a vision. He thought he was in the 
pulpit. Round about him were holy angels. 



132 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

Beside him was the Lord Jesus, and be- 
fore him the congregation to which he 
was to preach. The vision deeply affected 
him. The following day he ascended the 
pulpit ; he felt the impression of the scene, 
he thought of the holy angels as if gathered 
around him^ of the blessed Saviour as at his 
side listening to his words and beholding his 
spirit ; he became intensely earnest, and from 
that time forward a wonderful power attend- 
ed his ministry. Multitudes gathered around 
him wherever he preached. Though he had 
the simple name of John while he lived, the 
ages have called him Chrysostom, the Golden 
Mouth. Could we as ministei's forget our- 
selves in the pulpit, and remember only that 
there is a heaven above and a hell below with 
dying sinners before us and a living, loving, 
mighty Saviour at our side, and that we are 
commissioned by that Saviour to speak with 
those sinners, and to plead witli them in the 
name of his love to flee from the wrath to 
come and lay hold on eternal life, would not 



SHALL WE HAVE A REVIVAL? 133 

our preaching be earnest and would not the 
almighty Spirit bear our words with wings of 
fire to the hearts of the people, arousing the 
careless and convicting the unconverted? 

" We'd preach as though we ne'er should preach again, 
And as a dying man to dying men/' 

If we want a revival of religion we must 
see that the faithful preaching of the gospel 
is backed up by holiness of life. Our God is 
a God of holiness. Before he appeared on 
Mount Sinai, the children of Israel had to 
cleanse themselves for three days. And be- 
fore Israel could take possession of the prom- 
ised rest of Canaan, Joshua had to see to it 
that they were purified. So if we wish 
God to do a great work for us, we must sanc- 
tify ourselves. Whatever of pride or envy 
or anger or evil-speaking or world liness or 
covetousness or slothfulness we find in our- 
selves, we must be willing to give up for 
ever; for these things grieve the Spirit, and 
the Lord will not hold fellowship with us 



134 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

while we indulge them. Do we not see the 
explanation of the cheerless, low spiritual 
life of many in the Church? They are 
neglecting some known duty or living in 
some known sin. 

" The dearest idol I have known, 
Whate'er that idol be, 
Help me to tear it from thy throne, 
And worship only thee." 

Truth is most powerful when presented in 
a life transfigured and ennobled by it. The 
most effective way to commend our religion 
is by a godly life. Character is mightier than 
profession. The world cares not how we 
preach on the Sabbath or how you speak 
and sing at the week-evening meeting; but 
if you live soberly, righteously and godly ; 
if you are gentle in temper, patient in trou- 
ble, honest in business, always generous, cheer- 
ful, unselfish, and always seeking to make 
others happy — the world will see it and recog- 
nize it, and ask the reason why. Holiness 



SHALL WE HAVE A REVIVAL? 135 

of life is an argument for the truth and power 
of religion which the most hardened will ob- 
serve and the most obtuse understand. And 
if the modern Church is far behind the ancient 
in faith and zeal and in revival power, per- 
haps it is because it is far behind it in godly 
living. 

And if we want a revival we must pray for 
it, " I would rather/^ says Moody, ^' pray like 
Daniel than preach like Gabriel.^' We cannot 
explain the " why '^ or the " how/' but we know 
by revelation and experience that true prayer 
will give birth to revival. The reason many 
congregations have no revival is because they 
do not pray. Ah, my reader, don't criticise 
your minister, and complain that he does not 
preach well enough, until you are sure that 
you yourself have done your full duty in the 
case. Don't say, '' It is Moses' fault that the 
Amalekites prevail," when God has told you 
to hold up Moses' hands and you have not 
done it. When the Church groans and trav- 
ails in pain and pours forth loud cries and 



136 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

tears, the blessing will come, the life will be 
manifested. When God promises to give a 
new heart and a new spirit to Israel, he 
says, " I will yet for this be inquired of by 
the house of Israel, to do it for them.^' 
When God promises to give to Christ the 
heathen for his heritage, he promises it in 
answer to prayer: "Ask of me and I will 
give thee.'^ When he would give life to the 
dead and dry bones in the open valley, he 
directs his servant to pray, " Come from the 
four winds, O Spirit, and breathe on these 
slain, that they may live." When Elijah 
prayed, the nation was reformed ; when 
Hezekiah prayed, the people were healed ; 
when the disciples prayed, Pentecost ap- 
peared ; when John Wesley and his com- 
panions prayed, England was revived ; when 
John Knox prayed, Scotland was refreshed ; 
when the Sabbath -school teachers at Tanny- 
brake prayed, eleven thousand were added to 
the Church in one year ; when Luther prayed, 
the papacy was shaken ; when Baxter prayed, 



I 



SHALL WE HAVE A EEVIVAL ? 137 

Kidderminster was aroused ; and in the lives of 
Whitefield, Payson, Edwards^ Tennent, whole 
nights of prayer were succeeded by whole 
days of soul-winning. To your knees, then, 
ye Christians ! Plead until the windows open, 
plead until the springs unlock, plead until the 
clouds part, plead until the rains descend, 
plead until the floods of blessing come. 

Then to faithful preaching and holy living 
and earnest prayer there must be added per- 
sonal effort to save souls. What would be 
thought of a man praying for a harvest of 
wheat, but neither ploughing nor sowing? 
Yet this is what many are doing in the 
Church. So far as personal effort to res- 
cue the perishing is concerned, multitudes of 
church-members are doing nothing. They 
are barren trees in the vineyard, withered 
members of the Christian body, drones in 
the hive. The minister and a few earnest, 
consecrated men and women are left to do 
the whole work, while perhaps two-thirds 
of the members are fast asleep. Now all 



138 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

this must come to an end if there is to be 
a revival in the congregation. The whole 
Church must be organized for work^ and all 
must feel that they are equally called to work 
as they have opportunity. When our Saviour 
fed the hungry multitude he gave to the 
disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. 
So, in order to reach a dying world in their 
various conditions and necessities, we need to 
organize and distribute by making every mem- 
ber of the Church a disciple indeed ; and as 
they go forth witli the Bread of Life, he will 
bless the labor and work to the famishing 
thousands around. What we want is not 
an occasional spasmodic effort, to be fol- 
lowed by a folding of hands and a going 
to sleep. The whole Church must be en- 
gaged in a persistent attack on the devil, 
the world and the flesh. We want special 
efforts by all means, but after these — what? 
Do we not need to be as earnest and dih'gent 
as ever in watering the good seed sown, in 
building up and strengthening the tender vines 



SHALL WE HAVE A REVIVAL? 139 

which have been transplanted from the wil- 
derness, in encouraging the zealous disciples 
who have become fellow-helpers to the truth, 
and in watching, working and praying with 
Jesus ? 

Look at the early days of Christianity. 
Those were the days of earnest, persistent per- 
sonal service. As soon as a man was convert- 
ed to God in those days be became a worker 
for Christ. Every Christian, whether he 
moved in Caesar's household or, like Lydia, 
in the pursuit of humble commerce, — every 
Christian did something for Christ and sought 
to advance his cause. And what was the re- 
sult? Why, within three centuries after the 
death of Christ the cross was uplifted in 
every land ; the name of Jesus was pro- 
nounced in every known dialect; mission- 
aries passed through the desert, penetrated 
into the remote recesses of uncivilized coun- 
tries, and the whole known world was evan- 
gelized. They were all at it, and always at 
it, and the Lord blessed their labors. So, 



140 OUTPOURINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 

ye soldiers of the cross to-day ! if you are to 
obtain glorious victories you must not rest 
satisfied with one man in a hundred going to 
battle. Every man of you must fight the 
good fight of faith, every heart must be stout 
and every arm must be strong ; every follower 
of Christ must march forward with the cour- 
age of a hero and with the strength of God, to 
do battle against the common enemy of man- 
kind. Thus, and thus only, will a true, real 
and permanent revival of religion be experi- 
enced, will sinners be seen flocking to Jesus 
as doves to their windows, and will the glory 
of the Lord cover the whole earth. 

And, lastly, let us never forget to give God 
all the glory. Whatever instrumentality he 
may employ, the work is all his. It is only 
where the Sun of mercy shines that the fruits 
of grace will grow. Without the Spirit of 
God the best arranged means are useless — 
lamps without oil, sails without wind, coals 
without fire. Underrate this truth, and you 
cut yourself off from the very fountain-head 



SHALL WE HAVE A REVIVAL? 141 

of revival. We may plant and water, but 
spiritual increase is from God, and God 
alone. It is not of him that willeth, nor of 
him that runneth, but of God that showeth 
mercy. Nothing short of God's omnipotent 
might in Christ's everlasting love, through 
the Holy Spirit's divine efficacy, can revive 
a single soul. Remember this, for it will 
guide your actions, raise your hopes, strength- 
en your faith and warrant your prayers. 

" Revive thy work, O Lord, 

Thy mighty arm make bare : 
Speak with the voice that wakes the dead, 
And make thy people hear." 



THE END. 



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